


Tamed

by earthinmywindow



Category: Eyeshield 21
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Dystopia, F/M, Multi, Ownership, Pets, Sexual Content, Taboo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:04:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthinmywindow/pseuds/earthinmywindow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The citizens of White City lead sheltered lives, encircled by high walls that keep out the savage creatures known as Ferals. But the Ferals are a source of fascination as well as fear and keeping tamed Ferals as personal companions, called Pets, is extremely popular. </p><p>When Mamori Anezaki was a small child, she had a close encounter with a Feral in the wild and has since devoted herself to the cause of liberating Pets and granting their species equal rights. In accordance with her convictions, she refuses to own a Pet, but when she finds a particularly ferocious-looking Feral injured in the street, the only way to save his life is to claim him as her own. Forced into a tenuous alliance, Mamori and the Feral named Hiruma will have to learn to trust each other as more unforeseen events begin to unfold around them. </p><p>Multiple characters and plotlines intertwine in a dystopian setting where males and females live as separate species and females have dominion of males.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Free Talk: I am very excited to begin posting this story here on AO3. Before getting my invite I was just posting it on tumblr. I won't put too many notes here, but I do feel I should include a statement about romanization. With manga fandoms, there is often disagreement on how Japanese names should be romanized and every fan has her own preferences. For Eyeshield 21, my preferred romanizations (for those names which do not have a consensus) include:
> 
> Julie Sawai (as opposed to Juri or Jyuri)  
> Meg Tsuyumine (as opposed to Megu)  
> Kotaro Sasaki (as opposed to Koutarou)
> 
> The only other note I will make is to expect various points of view. Each chapter is from a single character's POV, but there will be many different characters who get featured. Only the prologue is present tense.

**Prologue**

  
_“You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”_  
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery

* * *

  
  
She feels the arteries that surround her throat pulsing life. The hairs on the back of her neck prickle as they stand upright, reacting to her fear. She is lost, on the Outside, and the sky overhead is darkening to a bruised purple. Already she can hear the noises of wild things stirring in the scrubland around her. When the sun goes all the way down, this prairie will teem with Feralings, who will wake to their sunless world and stalk out from the forest in search of human meat.  
  
Unlike humans, who are most vulnerable when they’re very young, Ferals are most deadly in their larval stage. Only the Feralings feed on human flesh and only the Feralings are nocturnal, hunting their preferred diet under the cloak of night.  
  
She can’t remember how she got here. She was on one of those safaris—she thinks—that takes people on a tour of the Outside to witness Ferals in their natural habitat. Somehow she must have gotten separated from her parents, but she can’t remember how. She can’t think about anything except for how scared she is.   
  
Something rustles in the nearby bushes and her heart slams against the front of her chest. She has to hide. This place is too open and she’s too small and weak to defend herself. Too young and tender for a Feraling to pass up. She scrambles to her feet and dashes towards the edge of the forest without dusting herself off. As long as she doesn’t venture in too deep, the cover of trees seems safer than open space.  
  
Then she hears it, a soft whimper and the rattle of metal against metal. Perspiration coats her skin. She is frightened, but for some reason she doesn’t run. The little whine is alive, animal, but it doesn’t sound vicious. Doesn’t sound predatory. This creature sounds as scared as she feels.   
  
Operating on instincts that the rational part of her brain tells her are foolish, she moves closer to the sound instead of away.  
  
“Hello?” she says cautiously, taking one tiny step. “Is somebody there?” She takes another. There is always the small possibility that another human is out here. Against the urging of her rational brain, her steps get bigger, quicker.  
  
It doesn’t take long for her to find her target. Following the noises has led her to a small clearing in the woods and at its center is a cage made of metal wire. Inside it is a young Feral.  
  
It is not a Feraling. It can’t be. Although she has never seen a real live Feraling, she’s been taught all about them in school. They are hideous, ferocious creatures with claws like needles oozing venom and emotionless yellow eyes with little slit pupils. Accounts vary as to whether Feralings are covered in scales or coarse fur, but this creature has neither.  
  
His skin in bare and pink, like mature Ferals and humans, but it is smudged with dirt, especially his hand and feet, and it is marred by bruises and cuts crusted with blood. His hair is ensnared with twigs and leaves, a tangled mat of brown that hangs over half his face.   
  
He is indeed a Feral—she can see between his naked legs that he is not human—but he is the smallest one she has ever seen. He is even smaller than she is.  
  
And he is shaking, terrified.  
  
“Are you all right?” she asks gently. “Are you hurt?” She knows that Ferals don’t understand human speech and also that they are dangerous, particularly when cornered, but she feels an oddly protective instinct towards this one, what she imagines a Nurturer feels for her child.  
  
The tiny Feral cowers in his cage, far more frightened of her than she is of him. He squeaks out noises that sound like they could be words in the crude Feral language and for a moment she worries that he is calling to his brethren to come to his rescue. But his voice is too soft for that. He really is just scared.  
  
She squats next to the cage and laces her small hand between the wires of the cage. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she whispers.  
  
He cringes away from her hand, but she doesn’t withdraw it, just waits patiently. After several seconds he finally moves closer. First he sniffs her fingers, tentatively, just as she would expect an animal to do. Then he surprises her, grabbing hold of her hand without warning. The action is not aggressive but desperate, as if he was afraid she was going to pull away from him before he could touch her. While gripping her wrist lightly with one hand, he spreads open the other and presses his palm against hers.  
  
Their small hands are mirror images of each other: five nimble digits, clear nails—though his have half-moons of black dirt underneath them—that are unsuitable for killing things.  
  
She has never been so close to a Feral before, or even the domesticated ones that they call Pets. She never realized before now just how similar to humans they really are.   
  
The little Feral releases her hand so that he can use his to push the ratty brown curtain of hair from his face and look at her clearly. It is the first glimpse she gets of his eyes, which are large, round and disquietingly human.   
  
Suddenly her chest is tight, her skin clammy. She feels panicky. Even though her brain tells her that it is merely an animal in that cage, her heart cries _human_ and she can’t sever her gaze from his. She has to get him out of there.  
  
Her hands are clumsy, shaking, as they wiggle the mechanism that holds the cage door closed back and forth. The metal is rusted and the latch only budges by millimeters, but she keeps at it. She has to spring it open. The catchers who set this trap will have to return before too long, since they haven’t provided food or water to sustain their captive, and when they do, they will find an empty cage. This is what she has decided must happen.  
  
She tugs with all her strength—though she doesn’t have much—digging her heels into the earth and straining against the unyielding metal until it releases with a rusty squeal and she falls backwards onto her rump.  
  
The pad of her thumb stings where a bur on the cage wire tore the skin and she puts it in her mouth to suck away the blood. She’d been so rapt in her task that she hadn’t even felt the injury when it happened. But it doesn’t matter now that she’s gotten the cage open.   
  
The cage door is still swinging on its hinges, squeaking faintly. The Feral emerges timidly, poking his head out and withdrawing it back in once before crawling out for good. He wobbles slightly as he hoists himself up onto two legs. He is shorter than her and she is seven so she guesses he must be five or six years old.  
  
For a few moments he just stands there in front of her, his uncannily human eyes staring up at her. At this age, Ferals and humans look almost identical. If not for that thing between his legs and the small pit in the center of his belly, he would look just like a wild, muddy little human.   
  
“Go on now,” she urges in a quivering voice. She isn’t scared, but for some reason her whole body is trembling. “You’re free. Go find your family.”  
  
For the second time, the Feral unexpectedly touches her, this time reaching his hand up to cup her cheek and she is paralyzed in place. The tip of his tiny pink tongue flicks over his lips to moisten them before he opens his mouth and utters something in the language of his kind.   
  
She’d always been told that the Feral tongue is ugly, animalistic, but whatever he says sounds strangely beautiful to her. She hasn’t the faintest idea what it means.  
  
“Mamori!”  
  
The dampened sound of her name being called filters through the trees. The Feral hears it, too, his big brown eyes widening in panic. He hesitates for only a fraction of a second before sprinting off, amazingly fast, into the depths of the forest.  
  
Almost as soon as the rustle of his movement through the vegetation fades to nothing, new sounds replace it, voices and boots crunching on leaf litter, growing louder as they move rapidly closer.  
  
An adult breaches the clearing, out of breath from jogging, and is soon joined by others, five adults in total. Mamori recognizes two of them as her parents and calls out their names.  
  
Her Nurturer immediately rushes forward and swoops Mamori up into her arms. “Mamori! Thank goodness you’re okay! We were so worried! Don’t you ever wander off from us like that! Especially out here! You could have been eaten alive!”  
  
Mamori’s Provider joins them, soothes her partner with a gentle squeeze of her shoulder and tucks a strand of their daughters hair behind an ear. “You’re safe now, Mamori dear. But you must remember that Feral’s are dangerous creatures and out here is their territory. Even the ones we tame and make our Pets still have wildness in their blood. They are animals. Nothing more than animals.”  
  
Mamori has no words to respond with. Her brain is still swimming in the event that just took place, still haunted by those big brown eyes. She will never forget those eyes. They were not the eyes of an animal.  
  
This is the day, the moment, when Mamori Anezaki, at seven years old, decides she will never own a Pet.  
  



	2. Days Like This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mamori tries to recruit her close friends into her cause, the Household Pet Liberation Movement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Free Talk: I posted this on tumblr under a different chapter title but chose to change it to fit in better with the chapter naming convention.

 

 

**Days Like This**

_"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."_  
—Mahatma Gandhi

* * *

  
  
Mamori woke up cold, her bedsheets pasted to her skin with sweat. The sleep alarm on her bedside table was chiming merrily, but that wasn’t what had jarred her awake.  
  
She’d been having the dream again, the one with that little brown-eyed Feral. She knew enough about psychology to understand that it was more-than-likely a sublimation of her anxiety over the first day of the new school year—she always had that dream the night before an important day—but it still unsettled her and left her bathed in cool perspiration. Every time  
  
What made the dream so alarming was not just its vividness—though that certainly was a part of it—it was also the fact that it always played out exactly the same. The sights, the sounds, the smells all unfolding in sequence. Unlike ordinary dreams, this one was not a mere invention of her subconscious; it really happened and had been stored, in pristine condition, to her permanent memory, ready to be replayed any time her brain got nervous.  
  
After nine years, though, she’d learned how to recover quickly and push the dream back down into cold storage. The best remedy was distraction and preparing for the first day of school was an ideal one.  
  
She permitted herself only fifteen seconds to lay in bed drawing deep, cleansing breaths. Then she peeled back the damp sheets, swung her feet down to the floor, and headed for the shower. When she emerged amidst curls of steams, the smell of a hot breakfast was wafting up from the kitchen making her mouth water.  
  
From her closet she retrieved the familiar ivory skirt and pink blazer that were the uniform at the Level 4 school—it was hard to believe she was already starting her second year there—and quickly dressed herself. She straightened her hair with a drying comb and grabbed her schoolbag. Her tablet, which stored all her classwork as well as her textbooks, was already packed. Technically, it was the only school supply a student actually required, but Mamori always tucked a few analog books into her bag in case she found the extra time to read them. She didn’t even care if her classmates made fun; some things were only available in analog.  
  
Downstairs in the kitchen, she found a plate of food already set out for her. The high-fiber, high-protein cakes that comprised a typically breakfast smelled deceptively more appetizing than they tasted and Mamori immediately reached for the bottle of sweet-syrup to dredge them in.  
  
“Go easy on the syrup, Mamori,” her Nurturer said. “You don’t want to gain too much adipose.”  
  
How her Nurturer knew what she was doing was one of those parental mysteries—she wasn’t even looking towards the kitchen table. She was standing at the counter, leaning over her own plate, eyes fixed on the vidscreen as she ate absently.  
  
“It’s the first day of school. I need my energy,” Mamori said, a reasonable justification as the glucose rich condiment was intended to provide a quick burst of energy. Besides, she had never seen an overweight person before, so it couldn’t be that great a danger.  
  
Her Nurturer didn’t give her a response, too absorbed in the morning news. On the vidscreen, the tall, windowless Civic Building gleamed in morning sunlight, though it was impossible to tell if it was archival footage or a live feed. A text headline scrolled along the bottom of the screen:  
  
 _“Senator’s passing leaves opening on City Council.”_  
  
That got Mamori’s attention immediately. “A Senator died?” she asked. “When?”  
  
“Last night,” said her Nurturer. “Went peacefully in her sleep, they say.”  
  
“This is big,” Mamori said, pushing herself up from the table. “This is huge! Have they given any clues about who they might get to replace her? If they’re leaning traditional or progressive?”  
  
At the sounds of her daughter’s inquisition, the woman finally turned around, a look of affectionate exasperation on her face. “This is about Pets, isn’t it?” she sighed. “Mamori, are you really still hung about them? Besides, it’s not like one new Senator is going to make any major changes to the way things have always been.”  
  
“That’s not true,” Mamori insisted. “One vote can be the difference between a law getting passed or not. And Julie said she heard rumor that the Council is trying to pass a law requiring Pets to be tethered to their masters in public at all times with a... a chain! Can you believe that? It’s barbaric!”  
  
Mamori’s Nurturer never used a harsh tone with her—her mild temperament was probably why she became a Nurturer—but Mamori could always tell when she was uncomfortable with the direction a conversation was going and was trying to steer it in another direction. “It’s just a rumor,” she said. “But even if it’s true, I’m sure the Council has the citizens’ best interests at heart. And it’s not like that law would affect you, since you don’t own a Pet. Though maybe if you did, you would have less time to worry about politics...”  
  
“You know I can’t do that,” said Mamori, frowning. Of course her Nurturer knew her stance on Pets, since she’d been so vocal about it for so wrong.  
  
The woman just sighed mildly and at that moment Mamori felt a sudden pang of sympathy for her. Being so opinionated, she probably wasn’t the easiest daughter to live with. Not for the first time, she vowed to be more merciful towards her parents as far as her convictions were concerned. Somehow, she always seemed to forget.  
  
“Well, Suzuna is probably waiting already,” she said before giving her Nurturer a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for breakfast. Remember, I’ll be staying late today, but I’ll be home in time for dinner. I love you.” Then she grabbed the metal box that contained her lunch and made a brisk path to the door.  
  
As predicted, Suzuna Taki was already waiting at the shuttle station. They’d been neighbors and friends for as long as Mamori could remember but Suzuna was a year younger so this would be her first year at Level 4. She beamed when she saw Mamori approaching, clearly proud to be donning the same uniform.  
  
“What do you think, Mamori?” she asked, striking a pose. “Don’t I look more grown up? I think my chest is getting bigger, too.”  
  
Suzuna was a diminutive girl with a flat, childlike figure; if her proportions had changed at all over the six-week vacation, it didn’t show. But Mamori knew she was sensitive about this and chose her words with care.  
  
“Oh yes, definitely more mature. Though I don’t see why chest size matters. It’s not as if they serve any purpose. You should be happy with what you’ve got.”  
  
“Easy for you to say,” Suzuna said, pouting. “Yours are huge.”  
  
Mamori chuckled awkwardly. “Well, I am older than you. Oh look, here’s the shuttle.”  
  
The white shuttle glided silently towards them on its magnetic rails and when it stopped the door opened with the soft whoosh. Mamori and Suzuna were the only passengers.  
  
Noting the absence of the only student whose stop came before theirs, Mamori sighed. “Looks like Meg is going to be late.”  
  
“And on the first day,” Suzuna added, shaking her head.  
  
“Hold the door!” a small voice lilted from a distance. “I’m coming!” It was Koharu Wakana, her wispy arms swinging at her sides as she ran towards the shuttle.  
  
Suzuna quickly put a hand over the motion sensor that held the door. “Hurry!” she called out.  
  
By the time she made it inside, Koharu was panting and her bangs were sticking to her forehead. “Thanks,” she said in her mousy voice.  
  
Like Suzuna, Koharu was short of stature and slight of build and had glossy, blue-black hair—though Koharu wore hers in a long ponytail while Suzuna kept hers clipped to chin length. That, however, was the extent of their similarities. Whereas Suzuna was all gregarious energy, as if she subsisted on nothing but sweet-syrup, Koharu was soft-spoken and gentle.  
  
She would make an excellent Nurturer, that Koharu, but she already had a different job in mind.  
  
“What’s that on your skirt?” Suzuna asked, cocking her head to the side.  
  
Mamori saw it too, a rusty brown smear just above the hem on the front left side.  
  
Panic struck Koharu and her voice squeaked. “Oh no! Blood!”  
  
At that, Suzuna cringed back. “I guess your new Pet is still in pretty rough shape, huh?”  
  
“Actually, he’s doing a lot better.” Koharu anxiously wrung her hands at her sides. “I honestly wasn’t sure Takami would make it—the wound on his leg was so bad when I found him. But now I’m sure he’s going to live and his leg is steadily improving. Though I still have to change the bandages twice a day. So that’s where the blood is from.”  
  
“Will he be okay at home without you?” Suzuna asked.  
  
Koharu smiled. “Oh yes, definitely. The others will look out for him. Pets are very social creatures after all. They...” The words caught in her throat as her eyes slid over to Mamori and widened, as if just now noticing she was there. “I’m so sorry, Mamori! Are we upsetting you by talking about this? I know you hate Pets and all.”  
  
“It’s okay, honest,” Mamori said, appeasingly. “I don’t hate Pets. I just hate the way they’re treated.” Inside she let out a sigh because even her friends, after years of knowing her, still misinterpreted her stance. When she saw tears glistening on the rims of Koharu’s eyelids, though, she realized she hadn’t been clear enough. Her voice turned soft and apologetic. “Not by you, of course. You know that. I mean by the laws of the city.”  
  
A sniff and a bob of the head were all it took for Koharu to recompose herself to a state that—minus the Pet blood on her uniform—was perfectly appropriate for the first day of school.  
  
“So are you coming this afternoon?” Mamori asked cautiously.  
  
“Uh-huh,” Koharu answered. “I might have to leave early, though. I have something I need to buy at the Pet supply store.”  
  
Mamori didn’t ask her what it was. Not because it upset her, but because Koharu always needed something from the Pet supply store and it was usually something strange that Mamori didn’t know a thing about. Since her most recent acquisition a week ago, Koharu had five Pets. But Mamori didn’t resent her for it. Koharu took excellent care of all her Pets—they were all rescue cases of one kind or another—and if she would give them the same rights as humans if she could.  
  
Of this, Mamori was certain and it was why she’d invited Koharu to her meeting.  
  
They spend the rest of the ride to school in virtual silence, nervousness over the start of the new year having robbed them of smalltalk. That was the only explanation for Suzuna being so uncharacteristically quiet.  
  
Mamori sat next to the window and watched the city rushing by outside. They called it White City because the roads and the buildings, the fountains and the monuments, all were made from the same, seamless white material. Even the walls that encircled it all, trapping them in this great, round bowl of a city were white. But when the sun was setting, or rising, as it was right now, all of that white turned to warm, glowing gold. At sixteen, Mamori still found it breathtaking each new day.  
  
The shuttle moved smoothly onward towards the center of the city. There was no poverty in White City—a fact repeatedly touted on the news and in every textbook Mamori had ever been issued—but the social structure was still undeniably stratified with the general rule being that wealth and status increased the closer to the center one lived.  
  
At the last stop on the shuttle’s route, Maruko Himuro boarded. Although she lived close enough that she could easily walk, for reasons unknown, the richest student in their school always took the shuttle. A third year, Maruko was as aloof as she was beautiful.  
  
Mamori knew that she owned Pets but was too intimidated by her icy glamour to even speak to her, let alone broach the subject of the top-secret meeting she was hosting. Working up the nerve to talk to Maruko Himuro was another objective she was setting herself for this school year.  
  
When they arrived at school, Suzuna hugged Mamori and skipped off to the first year classroom. Maruko had already gone to join the other third years without a single word to anyone from the shuttle. That left Mamori and Koharu to walk into their second year classroom together.  
  
Students never had to wonder who their classmates would be at the start of a new year; White City was divided into eight sectors, like wedges of a giant pie, and due to strict population control, each sector supported only a single class at each year of each level. The faces that greeted Mamori on her first day of Level 4, Year 2 were the same—albeit older—that had greeted her on her first day of Level 1, Year 1.  
  
Already present in the classroom was Julie Sawai, her lips pursed as she tapped a stylus on her tablet. She looked up, however, when Mamori said good morning. “Mamori!” she chirped. “Koharu! Hey!”  
  
More cute than beautiful, Julie had a small mouth and small, pointed nose that together made her somewhat too wide eyes seem even wider. Her short hair was sky blue, a rare shade that must have cost her parents extra. In what was perhaps an example of self-fulfilling prophecy, she had developed an arty streak that fit with her eccentric hair color.  
  
Julie was a Pet owner.  
  
“Are we still planning to meet in the chem lab?” she asked Mamori in a surreptitious whisper.  
  
“Yep,” Mamori whispered back. “It wont run too late. In case you were worried. I know Kotaro has been having some, uh, behavioral problems lately.”  
  
Julie rolled back her head and released a tiny groan. “Don’t remind me. I thought bringing in Akaba would ease his separation anxiety, but even after a full year they still aren’t getting along. And it’s made Kotaro very... territorial.”  
  
She looked away and Mamori couldn’t help noticing that her cheeks stained the same pink as their blazers. It was probably best not to ask for clarification of what she meant by “territorial.”  
  
“Students to your seats. It is time for class to start.”  
  
The teacher’s voice cut through all the chit-chat in the room with a commanding timbre. She had a likewise autocratic appearance: narrow eyes, aquiline nose, black hair pulled back into a tight knot at the base of her neck, and a severe expression that could turn water into ice. In one pale, spidery hand she held her tablet, which contained the day’s agenda and when she spoke, her words were clipped.  
  
“Welcome to your second year of Level 4. I am sure we will all have a productive and enlightening year. Although I see we are missing one student.” She paused to examine her tablet screen. “Does anybody know where Meg Tsuyumine is?”  
  
Mamori predicted the silence that would meet their teacher’s question even before it filled the classroom like a black hole. Nobody knew where Meg was, just as nobody knew more than the most basic facts about Meg.  
  
She lived alone at the very edge of White City, almost to the wall. Both her Nurturer and Provider were deceased, killed in the dangerous line of work that Meg now carried out in order to support herself. She was smart—somehow, despite her frequent absences and tardiness, Meg Tsuyumine consistently ranked just below Mamori in test scores. But Meg’s favorite use of her superior intellect was knowing the school rules so well that she could come as close to violating them as possible without actually being punishable.  
  
The teacher was about to check her off as absent when the classroom door opened and the truant strode in without a trace of guilt on her features. “Yeah, I’m late,” she said. Then she snorted loudly and spat something into the trashcan before she took her seat. “So are we gonna get started or what?”  
  
Nearby, another student tittered quietly. “Gee, I thought for sure she’d finally gotten the Sickness and croaked. Oh well, it’s only a matter of time.”  
  
Meg glowered at the girl.  
  
“You’re ten minutes late, Tsuyumine,” the teacher said sternly, ignoring the student who’d snickered. “That is a violation.”  
  
Meg smirked and combed her fingers casually through her yellow-blonde hair. “Nine minutes, actually,” she said. “Which is permissible so long as it doesn’t happen more than three times in a quarter. And seeing as this is the first day of the first quarter, I think I’m in the clear.”  
  
Already bearing herself quite rigidly, the teacher stiffened even more at the reply she’d just received. “Tsuyumine, you are not starting off the new year on a good foot,” she said. According to the rules, though, there wasn’t anything she could do so she gritted her teeth and went ahead with the day’s lesson plan.  
  
“Today we will be going over our syllabus for the year and also reviewing some things you should already be familiar with. As you know, this year’s curriculum will include much more comprehensive Pet education. Although this part of your lessons will not begin until later in the year, I do expect you to all be mature about it.”  
  
At least a dozen students were already giggling or talking in hushed voices at the mere mention of these comprehensive future lessons. Koharu looked determinedly serious. Julie squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. Meg was grinning deviously. This was going to be an interesting year.

* * *

  
After an agonizingly slow, energy-sapping school day that consisted entirely of the teacher reiterating things that the class had already learned in past years, Mamori found her enthusiasm instantly restored when she unlocked the chem lab with a card key she’d borrowed from the principal. Being the top student in the school had its advantages; the principal hadn’t even asked any questions when she said she wanted to use the lab for a private experiment.  
  
What she had planned for the afternoon carried far more significance than a science experiment.  
  
The others arrived in quick succession: Julie, Koharu, Suzuna, and, surprisingly punctual, Meg. Mamori made sure the door was locked behind them before speaking.  
  
“You all know why I’ve asked you here today.”  
  
“Actually, we don’t,” said Meg. She was leaning against a wall, acting uninterested. But she had come so she had to at least be curious.  
  
“I’m guessing it has something to do with Pets?” Julie said, though her voice sounded uncertain. “Since all of us have Pets. Well, except for you.”  
  
“And me,” Suzuna said matter-of-factly. “Natsuhiko is my _parents_ ’ Pet.”  
  
“And we all know that Mamori has _strong_ opinions on the matter,” Meg added, a hint of derision in her emphasis.  
  
That comment set off Suzuna, who fired back angrily. “Don’t make fun of Mamori. She’s the smartest person in the entire school. If she has opinions, they’re probably right.”  
  
“Okay, calm down,” Mamori said, lifting her hands in a peace gesture. If this was going to work, they all had to be on the same side from the start. “I’ve asked you four here because you are my closest friends and are all intelligent, forward-thinking individuals. That is why I am proposing that we form a new club.”  
  
Meg stretched her arms over her head and moved towards the door. “Well then count me out. You know I don’t do school clubs, what with my job and my general disdain for anything and everything to do with this conformity factory. Sorry kids.”  
  
“Wait!” Mamori said, stopping Meg in her tracks. “Wait. It’s not a school club. Actually, we could get into a lot of trouble if anyone at school found out what we were doing.”  
  
Slowly turning back around to face the room, Meg smiled and said, “Go on.”  
  
That devious look on Meg’s face sent a shudder down Mamori’s spine. If Maruko Himuro was intimidating, Meg Tsuyumine was downright scary. She swallowed and continued, now sounding unintentionally nervous. “Well, this top secret club would be dedicated to furthering the cause of equal rights for Pets. I’m calling it the Household Pet Liberation Movement.”  
  
The name aroused an incoherent murmur of responses from the other four, but after a moment, Julie spoke up clearly. “Pet _liberation_? You mean we want people to set their Pets free? Like, on the Outside?” Her voice was growing more distressed as she talked, an indication that she was already jumping to conclusions about the answers to her questions. “I can’t do that to Kotaro. The Ferals would murder him! He doesn’t even speak their language. And he’s... he’s obnoxious! They’d kill him for sure!”  
  
“Easy there,” Meg said, putting a hand on Julie’s tensed shoulder, which had an immediate calming effect. “I don’t think that’s what Mamori is talking about. And I’ve met that Pet of yours. If he were released on the Outside, the Ferals are more likely to kill themselves just to get away from him.”  
  
“What I’m talking about is the fact that we even have an Outside,” Mamori said. “The fact that Pets and Ferals can speak like us and think like us and look almost exactly like us but they aren’t allowed to go to school, or own property, or hold jobs. They aren’t even allowed to enter our city unless one of us humans agrees to take full responsibility and turn him into her property. And then she can do whatever she want with him!”  
  
Now she was getting riled up. Every time she thought about the injustice of it all, Mamori felt the anger rise like bile at the back of her throat.  
  
“Not _whatever_ she wants,” Koharu said timidly. “What with the Sickness and all.”  
  
Meg barked out a laugh. Mamori ignored it.  
  
“Alright, _almost_ whatever she wants,” Mamori corrected. “But that’s not the point. The point is that Pets deserve the same rights and freedoms we have and the only way that is achievable is if we convince as many people as we can that they do. The City Council may make all the laws, but they won’t go against what is right if the entire city agrees on it.”  
  
“And how are you proposing we convince them?” Meg asked, lifting a skeptical eyebrow. “Particularly if this club is so super top-secret that if anyone finds out about it we’ll be disbanded and possibly expelled.”  
  
Although she had foreseen this snag, Mamori still deflated when she heard it pointed out to her. “That I haven’t figured out yet,” she said rather sheepishly, but she restored her optimism quickly and added, “That will be everyone’s first assignment. Myself included. Let’s each try to think up one way that we can get our message out without it being traced back to us. So are you with me?” Her eyes moved around the small circle that had formed around her.  
  
“You know I’m in,” Suzuna said brightly.  
  
“I’m in, too,” said Koharu. “If Pets had more rights, they wouldn’t be put in danger as much.”  
  
“As long as I don’t have to get rid of Kotaro and Akaba, I’m in,” said Julie.  
  
That just left Meg, who had her arms folded over her chest. She examined her fingernails nonchalantly, intentionally drawing out the wait for her response before shrugging and saying, “Why the fuck not?”  
  
The others recoiled at her carefree use of that Feral word.  
  
“Then it’s decided,” Mamori said. She could feel triumph already swelling in her chest even though they hadn’t accomplished anything yet. “We five are officially an unofficial top-secret club. It’ll be too risky to meet here at school from now on, so we’ll have to rotate between each other’s houses. Who’d like to be first?”  
  
Silence and fidgeting ensued. Nobody wanted to be caught discussing controversial issues in their homes any more than at school.  
  
“I’ll be first,” Meg finally said. “Let’s meet at my house next week. I’ve got no parents after all, seems like the logical choice.” Her lips curled up into a provocative grin. “Besides, I want to finally introduce you to my Rui.”  
  
More fidgeting.  
  
Not one to turn down a volunteer, even if it did make her nervous, Mamori smiled amiably. “Very well. Next week we will meet at Meg’s home. Are there any questions for today?”  
  
Nobody spoke up, but it may have been that they were still wary about the whole situation. Mamori was confident that by next week everyone would have a lot more to say.  
  
And so the preliminary meeting of the Household Pet Liberation Movement drew to a close.  
  
They’d finished in time to catch the first late shuttles and though everyone remained silent during the ride home, for Mamori the very air crackled with excitement. This club was going to change the world, she could feel it. Now that she had her friends behind her, she would finally turn all her thoughts and words into action. The scared brown eyes of that tiny Feral would finally stop haunting her.

* * *

  
That night, after she’d finished her homework and put on pajamas but before she turned out the lights, Mamori lay on her bed with a stack of analogs, racking her brain for any ideas on how to disseminate information to the masses without arousing suspicion. It would not be an easy task in such a regimented, conforming society, where independent thought was considered more of a liability than a virtue.  
  
As she mentally played out hypothetical situations—which always seemed to end with her or one of her friends getting caught and punished—she heard sounds coming from the street below her window. There were two distinct parts, a low growl and percussive slaps, like bare feet of tile.  
  
Mamori pushed open her window and leaned her head out, hoping to be able to see what it was. All she saw was a hunched, pointy shape silhouetted by the light of a streetlamp. Whatever it was, it was moving. A person? An escaped Pet? Mamori dreaded it being the latter. The punishment for a Pet that escaped from its master was death or maiming, depending on the circumstances.  
  
She put on a jacket over her pajamas and moved as fast as she could without waking her parents, down the stairs and out the door.  
  
The white material that made up the streets felt smooth and cool beneath her bare feet as she padded cautiously to where the Pet or person—hopefully person—had been when she saw it from her window. It was still there, in almost exactly the same spot. As the silhouette rose and fell with each breath it took, rasping sounds escaped its lungs. It was exhausted.  
  
“Hello?” Mamori whispered, moving closer with tiny steps. “Are you okay? Can I help you?”  
  
“Fuck off!” the shape, now obviously a Pet snarled at her.  
  
Her heart plummeted. It was somebody’s escaped Pet, doomed to execution. Her brain groped helplessly for a solution but found none. Eyes stinging, throat spasming, she reached out a hand to him. The very least she could do was help him up.  
  
And then the near-full moon emerged suddenly from behind a dense cloud and spilled its blue-white light down onto the city and Mamori finally saw what it was she was helping.  
  
This was no Pet.  
  
He was a Feral, and a fearsome one at that. His ears were unlike any that Mamori had ever seen, on Feral, Pet, or human; they were long and tapered into fine points. His lips were spread in rictus grin, exposing a nest of sharp, triangular teeth and his eyes were fierce. He was nothing like the Feral she had encountered as a child. He was terrifying.  
  
But for some reason, Mamori wasn’t frightened. Or maybe she was so frightened that she had lost the rational part of her brain. Either way, she didn’t look away. She didn’t take a single step backwards.  
  
In the light of the moon, her eyes saw blood, black against the white of the street. He was hurt, but she couldn’t see where.  
  
The whine of a security vehicle came to life not too far away and sweat beaded on her skin. They were about to be busted.  
  
Her heart was pounding furiously as she looked the Feral in the eyes and asked, “Do you want to live?”


	3. A Simple Twist of Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After his infiltration of White City goes awry, Hiruma finds himself in the unexpected care of a very interesting city dweller.

 

 

  
**A Simple Twist of Fate**

_“I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.”_  
—Pablo Picasso

* * *

  
He’d miscalculated.  
  
He never miscalculated. But somehow he must have because he’d landed way too hard on his right side when he came over the wall. His right ankle was badly twisted, or possibly sprained, and starting to swell. His right arm was broken. Of that there was no question; a spear of the fractured bone had torn right through the muscle and skin and even the fabric of his shirt sleeve and was now jutting out at a grotesque angle.  
  
Considering his present condition, he’d managed to make it remarkably deep into the city, fueled by the thrill of danger. And, most importantly, he hadn’t yet been spotted. But now the rush was ebbing, its numbing effects wearing off, and the pain and exhaustion levels were pushing past even his high threshold. His pace was slowing and each new breath he took burned his lungs a little hotter.  
  
Blood snaked in a warm rivulet down his wrist and dripped onto the pavement below him.  
  
Fuck! This wasn’t going to work.  
  
Being doubly injured was bad enough, but leaving a telltale trail of blood that would lead right to him was a fucking calamity. His only viable option was to find a hiding place where he could lick his wounds and get his shit together. Oh, and clean up that fucking blood puddle.  
  
But first he needed to rest. Just for a few seconds.  
  
“Hello? Are you okay? Can I help you?”  
  
Dread fell over him like a hot, smothering blanket. It had been a long time since he’d heard their language spoken, but he still understood it perfectly. The words themselves were innocuous but for him they were a death knell because they meant he’d been caught. By a member of a species that hated him. In their territory. And he was incapacitated. He could have gotten around all but the last point.  
  
The pain from his ankle and the pain from his arm had spread and met each other in his belly and multiplied so that his entire body was now a single knotted mass of agony. His breaths had turned to ragged, desperate heaves. And now this city dweller with her cloying voice had arrived to deliver the final blow.  
  
What a fucking pathetic way to go. He’d sworn he’d never let one of them be what took him, but here he was. And here she was.  
  
“Fuck off!” he snarled. It was reflexive; where he came from, that was all it took to be left alone most of the time. But of course they were in her twisted, backwards world now and he was doomed to whatever bestial means these creatures used to get rid of interlopers.  
  
Except that he was pretty damn certain he was the only interloper they’d ever encountered. These soft and fearful creatures kept themselves well protected behind their towering white wall and the overwhelming majority of his own kind were too lazy, too weak, or too stupid to ever make it over.  
  
And why would they want to? This was just a fancy cage after all.  
  
More than once he’d questioned his own sanity, before, during, and especially after his surmounting of the white wall. But if there was any chance that the person he was looking for was in this city, he had to find him.  
  
The soft creature in front of him was crouched low, holding out her small hand to him. In the moonlight he could see her face, pale and smooth and framed by neatly groomed brown hair. Her brow was knitted, as if she were concerned, and he felt an immediate stab of contempt for her in his gut. What kind of trick was this?  
  
Somewhere nearby, the piercing wail of one of their worthless inventions sounded. Fucking perfect. He got to choose which humiliating end he would meet.  
  
Fuck his miscalculation! Fuck this city and fuck all its inhabitants! Especially the one right in front of his face, with her disgusting pity.  
  
And yet his gaze stubbornly refused to unlock from hers. It took just a fraction of a second to realize why. It was the complete lack of fear in those big, wet eyes. He knew—with a measure of gleeful satisfaction—the terror his appearance struck in others of his own kind, so by all logical reason this child of the timider species should be running for her life or quaking on her feet.  
  
But she just stood there, watching him, hand still held out to him.  
  
“Do you want to live?” she asked without even the slightest quiver in her voice.  
  
He blinked at her. Pain was starting to blur the edges of his vision. It must have been affecting his judgment as well because he didn’t instantly recoil from her offer. The approaching siren would inevitably bring with it a quick extermination. But taking this creature’s hand might well be the first step towards a slower, far more agonizing death. Or worse.  
  
Considering the torture he was already experiencing, he should have picked the quick death. But just like the white wall, if there was even a one-in-a-million chance that going with her would let him live long enough to find Musashi, he had to take it.  
  
With his uninjured left arm, he reached for her hand and took it in his. When she pulled him up to his feet he staggered, his reflexes muzzy from pain and blood loss, and the next instant her shoulder was wedged under his armpit, one hand on his back, steadying him. Her touch was careful, but firm. Her knees would not buckle beneath the dead weight of him.  
  
She was an interesting one, this creature. Or she would have been if he weren’t in such blinding pain and could actually think about it.  
  
Taking the journey in deliberate steps, as quickly as she could without jostling him too much, the soft one got him to her house and in the door before whatever that siren was attached to arrived on the scene. Inside was dim and quiet. If any others lived here—and the way these creatures liked to coddle their young way longer than necessary, someone probably did—they were already asleep.  
  
The linked duo climbed the stairs one at a time, each step sending a fresh stab through him. But he didn’t make a sound and neither did she until they were in what he assumed to be her personal quarters and the door was shut behind them. She settled him onto her bed and spoke, in a whisper, for the first time since she’d asked him if he wanted to live.  
  
“Your arm. I think it’s broken.”  
  
That was the first thing she said? He let loose a derisive little snort. “Well aren’t you a clever one. Brilliant observation, I must say. Never would have figured it out myself from the fucking bone sticking out of my flesh.”  
  
Her eyes, two big pools of blue, blinked in surprise. “You speak our language.”  
  
“Again, stating the obvious,” he grunted disdainfully. “Is everyone in this city so smart, or are you just a fucking genius?”  
  
She frowned, brow furrowing angrily. “There’s no need to be so nasty to me. I’m trying to help you.”  
  
So this was how she responded to his vitriol. Interesting. Her brains might be lacking, but he had to give her nerves some credit where it was due.  
  
“I was just surprised is all,” she continued with a softer expression on her face. “I’ve never met one of... your kind who spoke our language and wasn’t somebody’s Pet.”  
  
And she’d said the word. He’d just been on the verge of deciding that he didn’t hate this one and she had to go and use that vile word. “I’m nobody’s fucking Pet!” he spat, intentionally drawing back his lips so that his teeth were all threateningly bared to her.  
  
She flinched, but only by the slightest degree, and immediately afterwards she was frowning down at him again, arms crossed over her chest. “Well now who’s stating the obvious?” she asked. “I just said you weren’t somebody’s Pet. And you know, the mere fact that I mention that members of my species keep members of your species as Pets does not mean that I condone or support the practice.”  
  
For the first time he could remember, he was rendered speechless. It was shock from his wounds. Had to be. There was no way that this soft, prissy creature had just stunned him into silence.  
  
“So do you have a name?” she asked, a hard edge still audible in her voice though he could tell she was trying to smooth it down.  
  
He hesitated, considering whether he could trust her with his real name. “It’s Hiruma,” he finally said. He was already in too deep to bother with aliases.  
  
“Mamori,” she said, and a trace of a smile ghosted over her pink lips. Her face was, admittedly, not unpleasant to look at. “I want to help you, Hiruma, but I don’t have the proper training or the supplies. I’ll need to have my friend Koharu come over and treat your injuries.”  
  
“Out of the question,” he snapped. “Just having you know about me is bad enough. I won’t have any of your little friends gawking at me and poking at me and squealing to your fucking authorities.”  
  
“Would you rather I let you bleed to death on my bed?” Mamori asked and without giving him time for a biting retort, she kept talking. “Koharu won’t squeal. And she won’t gawk or poke. She’s very gentle and she is excellent at taking care of...” There was a pause in her sentence where she was obviously going to say Pets. “Your kind,” she said instead.  
  
“Fine,” he grumbled. If his his brain couldn’t come up with a better course of action it meant that there wasn’t one.  
  
While Mamori tapped her fingers on a flat, rectangular device, Hiruma silently reveled in the exquisiteness of his agony. Physical pain was its own kind of high. He’d found that out many times over, though this was about as sharply as he’d ever felt it. Pain had the power to make both mind and body feel real and present, in a way that no other sensation did. He was keenly aware of his blood, throbbing through his vessels, of his heart, which was pumping it. He was aware of his lungs as they filled and emptied inside his ribcage, over and over again.  
  
“I messaged Koharu,” Mamori said, setting aside her device. “She’s coming over. Thank goodness she lives so close by and is still awake. Now, I’m going to go downstairs and let her in so my parents don’t wake up. I’ll try and clean up as much of the blood as possible, too. Before I go, can I get some water or something to eat?”  
  
“Water’s fine,” he mumbled. Strange, he hadn’t noticed how parched his throat was until she offered. And she remembered about the bloody trail he’d left. Maybe she wasn’t as stupid as he’d thought.  
  
Mamori brought his water in an odd container, like a transparent bag with a spout attached. He took a swig and it tasted funny, artificial, but it felt wonderful on his throat.  
  
“I thought you’d prefer this to a glass,” she said. “You can drink while lying down without spilling on yourself. Okay, I’ll be right back, Hiruma.”  
  
His name sounded different somehow when she said it. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.  
  
He may have dozed off once or twice while she was gone. Not for very long, of course, as he was in too much discomfort for any lasting rest. When Mamori returned to the room she was accompanied by another of her species, smaller than her with long black hair. The little thing was carrying a black bag that was almost as large as she was and her face held all the fear that was absent from Mamori’s.  
  
Mamori kept the introductions mercifully brief. “This is Hiruma, Koharu. Koharu, Hiruma.”  
  
“Uh, hi,” Koharu said on a voice so soft it was barely even audible, quite a contrast to his host. She approached the bed with tiny, nervous steps, set down her bag, and set about her task, only talking when she needed to. “Open your mouth, please?” she asked timidly.  
  
When he complied, she cringed much more dramatically than Mamori had and even let out a tiny squeak of alarm. Her hand trembled as she deposited a small, wafer-thin square not into his mouth, but into his hand. “Um... You put that on your tongue,” she said. “It’ll numb the pain.”  
  
She was afraid of getting bitten, he guessed. But it was all probably for the best since he didn’t want one of these creatures putting strange medications in his mouth and if she had attempted to he may well have chomped off a finger or two. He eyed the little square suspiciously—and with damn good reason as it had been administered by one of them and was an acidic shade of blue not found anywhere in nature—then flashed the same look at little Koharu.  
  
She gulped. “I swear it’s safe. It’s so you won’t feel it as much when I reset the bone in your arm. Otherwise it will be excruciating.”  
  
“Just give me something to bite down on,” he growled, tossing aside the chip of medicine. “Preferably something that won’t break.”  
  
“O-okay...” If her voice kept on shrinking whenever she talked, it would be silent the next time she opened her mouth. The contents of her bag clinked together as her tiny hands groped around inside. “All I have is this,” she said, withdrawing a long metal bar. “It’s for splinting. It’s an alloy that won’t break but it might break your... your teeth.” There was an distinct vibrato on the word teeth; she really was disturbed by them.  
  
Tiring of her meekness and wanting this done already, Hiruma told her, “Just wrap something around  the fucking thing and hand it over.”  
  
Moments later, the splint, sheathed in one of Mamori’s shirts, was clenched in his jaw and both of Koharu’s hands were on his mangled right arm. This wasn’t going to be pleasant; he didn’t need the wretched little thing to forewarn him, but of course she would.  
  
Only she didn’t. Without so much as a whimper of hesitation, that creature yanked down on his arm with baffling strength and his entire right side exploded with pain. A scream tried to claw its way out of his chest but he choked it back inside of him, willed himself to bear this torture stoically. The creature pulled harder, manipulating the splintered pieces of bone back into alignment. It felt like he was being roasted alive, his arm engulfed in flame.  
  
Spots of red and gold burst behind his eyes. Shit! He was going to pass out. The last thing Hiruma saw before his nervous system overloaded and his vision blackened was Mamori’s grief-stricken face. He hadn’t even realized he’d been watching her the whole time.

* * *

  
When he regained consciousness—which was more of a groggy stumbling back into the world than a sudden awakening—the window was dark. It was still nighttime, though he had no idea how long he’d been out.  
  
That miniature sadist, Koharu, and her bag of tricks were gone but she’d splinted and wrapped his arm and taped his ankle before she’d left. Both injuries still throbbed hotly, but compared to the pain that had put him under it was tolerably dull.  
  
Mamori was in a chair pulled up next to the bed. She was awake, watching him, but she hadn’t spoken yet. Her face was settled into an expression of sober concern, but when he looked at her, he could still see the phantom of how she had appeared right before he blacked out. It was stamped, indelibly, into his memory. She’d been frightened not of him, but _for_ him.  
  
Why the fuck should one of them be so upset about his suffering?  
  
It didn’t take long for her silence to irritate him so much that he had to be the one to break it. “How long was I gone for?” His voice sounded raw and weak, even to his own ears.  
  
“About two hours,” she said. Her mouth and her eyebrows shifted by the tiniest increments and that was somehow all it took to turn her face from worried to annoyed. “You know I really think you may be insane, Hiruma,” she said. “If you’d just taken the pain medication you wouldn’t have had to experience that.”  
  
What a bossy little know-it-all.  
  
“I prefer not to put things in my body if I didn’t see where they came,” he grunted.  
  
“It came from Koharu’s veterinary kit,” Mamori said pointedly, as if she actually thought that was winning counterargument.  
  
“Yeah? And how did it get in there? Who made it?” He hadn’t intended to get into an row, but with this one it just came so effortlessly. “I even wonder about the water you drink in here. It tastes wrong.”  
  
Mamori’s frown deepened. “Maybe _your_ water tastes wrong to _us_. Ever think about that?”  
  
He could see now that the skin below her eyes was sunken and purply. She was so obviously tired and yet she’d stayed awake waiting for him to rouse so she could fight with him. Or at least that was his take on the situation. And she thought _he_ was the insane one.  
  
“You are a real piece of work, you know that?” He’d meant the words to sound reproachful, but instead they came out with an inadvertent shade of amusement. Mamori was not somebody he could ever like, but he did find her oddly compelling. And maybe once he got his mind and body back in fighting shape he could put her to good use.  
  
“Maybe so,” she said. “But I really wish you would trust me. Even just a little bit.”  
  
“I’m in your bed, aren’t I?” he grumbled. “Would I be here if I didn’t trust you? Oh, and I let that little wisp of fluff you call a friend nearly rip my arm off. I’d say I’ve demonstrated a remarkable level of trust considering what I am and what you are.”  
  
Mamori just frowned. Excellent, he’d managed to shut her up.  
  
“If your friend squeals she’ll regret it, by the way,” he added.  
  
“I swore her to secrecy,” she told him, still frowning. “I know you don’t think much of her or her veterinary skills, but she did get you arm set and stitched and took care of your other injuries.”  
  
“Did I complain about her work?”  
  
“I suppose not,” said Mamori, though he knew there was a caveat coming; she wouldn’t admit she was wrong if there wasn’t one. “But you can’t refuse to take the antibiotics she left like you did with the pain medicine. I won’t allow you do get an infection and die.”  
  
Now she was giving him orders; she really wasn’t all that different from the rest of her rotten species. “You don’t get to choose when or how I die,” he snarled.  
  
That earned him an eyeroll from Mamori and he honestly couldn’t blame her because it sounded petty the moment he’d said it. “I don’t believe for a minute that you really want to die this way,” she said. “If you’re afraid of the safety of the medicine, I’ll take it myself to show you it’s safe.” Then she picked up a thin square of medicine—this one a glaringly synthetic pink—that was on the table next to the bed.  
  
“That’s not...” He didn’t even get to the word necessary before she popped it into her mouth. “Are you fucking crazy?” he barked. “Even if it’s not poisoned, won’t taking unnecessary medicine make you sick?”  
  
She just shrugged, infuriatingly insouciant. “I don’t know. But it’s too late now, so you might as well take it, too.”  
  
Her logic didn’t make sense but it nonetheless convinced him to pinch up another of those pink wafers and place it on his tongue. It left a sickeningly sweet spot where it dissolved so he washed it away with a long quaff of not-quite-right tasting water.  
  
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I still don’t know if you’re nuts or just plain stupid. Staying up all night and taking drugs that might make you sick. You’re still young enough that you have to attend school, right? Aren’t you worried about being fucked up in the morning?”  
  
Tiredness was heavy in her voice as she answered. “I don’t know what ‘fucked up’ means, but it doesn’t matter. I’m taking a meditation day tomorrow.”  
  
He opened one eye to peer at her. “Meditation day?”  
  
“We don’t get sick in the city,” she explained. “But we are allowed a certain number of days per year for our mental and emotional health. They’re called mediation days.”  
  
“And you’re going to waste one on me?”  
  
“I don’t consider it a waste,” she said. “I can’t exactly leave you alone in my room, so until I figure...” Her sentence broke for a long, wide-mouthed yawn. “...what to do with you, I’ll need to stay home.”  
  
“You need sleep,” he said. Sure he could think of a few choice objections to her ridiculous caretaker mindset, but he wasn’t going to voice them when she was like this. It could wait.  
  
He had things he needed to ask her, and he was sure she had some for him. But those could wait, too. Truthfully, he was fucking exhausted.  
  
“Can I turn out the light?” Mamori asked.  
  
“Yeah, go ahead,” he replied.  
  
In the dark he heard her sit back down in her chair and he felt a tiny twinge of guilt at occupying her bed.  
  
“Goodnight, Hiruma,” she whispered.  
  
 _Yes, goodnight, Mamori_ , he thought to himself.

* * *

  
His dreams that night were a labyrinth of white walls and black forests, pervaded by the coppery reek of blood.  


* * *

  
When he opened his eyes again, creamy yellow sunlight was bleeding in through the single window in the room. Mamori was slumped forward, her arms and head resting next to him on the bed while her rear end was still parked in its chair. A soft snortling sound escaped her mouth at intervals. How could she sleep like that?  
  
His arm still pulsed faintly, as did his ankle, but it wasn’t so bad. Something warm was brushing against the knuckles of his right hand. It was Mamori’s soft, slender fingers.  
  
Well, she had delivered exactly what she’d offered him. It was morning and he was still alive.


	4. Fire in the Belly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meg Tsuyumine meddles in the lives of her friends while keeping the kinky details of her own life secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With sincere apologies for coining the term "Pet-erosexual."

 

 

  
**Fire in the Belly**

_“Sex is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.”_  
—Marquis de Sade

* * *

  
Meg Tsuyumine woke to her lover’s hot breath pooling wetly against her bare back. It was a singularly delicious sensation—the only way to start a new day as far as she was concerned—and she allowed herself a few minutes just to languish in it before rolling over with a mumble. “I know you’re not sleeping.”  
  
The eyes that blinked back at her were mottled green and brown and gold, the earthy colors of wild places.  
  
“Damn your eyes are sexy,” she purred before shifting to a businesslike tone to say, “Now go make me some breakfast.”  
  
Yawning, she propped herself against the back of the bed and stretched her arms high above her head until her shoulders popped. Her gaze followed her lover’s nude backside as it lifted from the bed, seeding a fresh slew of lascivious thoughts in her dirty little brain. What a sweet ass. Unable to resist, she reached over and gave it a quick smack with the back of her hand.  
  
Just another typical morning in the Tsuyumine household.  
  
Six days from now her closest friends would finally know the truth about her lifestyle. For someone else this might be a source of gut-twisting anxiety that would only grow worse as the fated day drew closer. For Meg, however, the predominant feeling was anticipation of relief.  
  
Her world had been a closed system for as long as she could remember. Members only. No admittance. But it was by necessity rather than choice. She wasn’t ashamed of how she lived her life. She fucking loved her life. The problem was that certain details of that beloved life were considered—by social mores and by law—explicitly taboo. It had taken years for her to build up enough trust in her friends to feel that they could handle the truth, but the formation of their little club yesterday had finally clinched it. It was time to come out to them.  
  
She still wasn’t exactly sure how she was going to handle the big reveal, though.  
  
 _Yes, friends, the rumors spread by our more intellectually enfeebled peers are all true. Yes, my parents both died on the Outside. Yes, I work on the Outside now, too. Yes, I am as sexually precocious as they say I am. And yes, my lover happens to be my Pet._  
  
Not the most elegant tactic. At least she had six days to come up with something better.  
  
The condensed layout of her small apartment provided a clear view of the kitchen from her bed, which suited her just fine as she was usually too lazy to get up right away and she loved to watch Rui make breakfast clad in nothing but an apron. He was definitely a treat for the eyes, that Pet of hers.  
  
“I want meat!” she hollered.  
  
“Kegh! You always want meat, you glutton!” he yelled back. “Do you have any fucking idea how expensive that shit is? Even on the Outside! If you didn’t insist on eating it every damn day you could probably afford a nicer place to live!”  
  
She clucked her tongue. Such a contentious Pet. Then again, if Rui were some well-behaved sycophant she wouldn’t adore him so. Meg needed a partner who could match wits with her and wasn’t afraid to show his teeth.  
  
Having forced herself to get up out of bed, she retrieved one of Rui’s rumpled shirts from a pile on the floor and tugged it on without bothering to button it. Then she padded into the kitchen and sidled up behind him, pressing her naked front against his naked back. She had to stand on tiptoes to deliver a sultry whine into his ear. “But, Rui, I like meat so much.” And as she said it her hand slid over the hard curve of his hip, under the apron, down the hollow where thigh joined torso.  
  
All she ever had to do to get what she wanted was to touch him _there_.  
  
He stiffened in her loose grip and conceded defeat with a small, shuddering gasp. “Okay! You win!,” he stammered. “You can have meat. Just don’t... distract me while I’m cooking it.”  
  
With a triumphant smirk she withdrew her hand. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. “Besides, there’s not enough time for that before I have to leave for the fucking shuttle. I’ve already used up one of my tardies for the quarter.”  
  
Rui sighed as he gathered his lank black hair into a ponytail and secured it with an elastic band. “And it’s only the second day.”  
  
Meg shrugged, nonchalant, and leaned back against a counter. “What can I say, Ru? I love to fuck you in the morning.”  
  
Ah, ‘fuck’—such a wonderful loan word from the Feral vernacular. It was the first Feral word that Rui ever taught her and it hadn’t taken long for her to master its many delightfully nuanced meanings. Fuck was an expletive for when a situation went sour. Adding -ing transformed it into an adjective that conveyed the utmost emphasis. Calling someone a ‘fucking idiot’ sounded so much better than just the epithet on its own. Being ‘fucked up’ was a bad thing, while ‘fuck yeah!’ affirmed something favorable.  
  
But Meg’s favorite use of the word by far was as a verb: to fuck. It meant to fornicate. To please each other’s bodies—particularly those sensitive pink parts—to the point of toe-curling ecstasy.  
  
Meg loved to fuck. But even before she’d ever tried it she knew that she only wanted to do it with Pets. When it came to fornication, she was absolutely uninterested in her fellow humans, the ones she was supposed to fuck. Her first time fucking Rui, almost a year ago, confirmed what she already knew. She was a deviant, a Pet-erosexual.  
  
She didn’t consider herself a pervert, of course. In Meg’s mind she was merely acting on the desires that were programmed into her genes. And if her genetic code was faulty it really meant that the laboratory that makes the babies had fucked up.  
  
But fornicating with Pets was strictly prohibited in White City. Children were taught from a very early age that, although Pets look strikingly similar to humans and can make great companions, they are still just Ferals at heart, impossible to ever truly civilize. Even the tamest, most docile Pet possessed a hardwired propensity for violence, so said parents and teachers, and to fornicate with one was beneath any self-respecting human.  
  
It was also extremely dangerous. While serious illnesses were virtually unknown in White City, there was still one that could not be eradicated. Called simply the Sickness, it carried a one-hundred percent mortality rate and could only be caught from fornicating with Pets.  
  
At least that is what the citizens were told, over and over and over. Meg, who had always been suspicious of authorities such as school and the City Council, wasn’t even sure she believed the Sickness was real. Or, if it was real, it wasn’t nearly the scourge it was made out to be. She’d never actually known anyone who’d contracted it and died. And despite all the fucking she and her Pet Rui did, she still hadn’t gotten it.  
  
By now she wasn’t even scared of the Sickness anymore.  
  
Naturally her friends still were, but she was certain that once she explained her situation they would accept her. Even that prissy Pet crusader Mamori Anezaki would approve of Meg’s choice of lover, if only because Meg was flaunting the laws that Mamori so disdained. One could even make the argument that making a lover of one’s Pet was a step towards treating them as equals.  
  
It would be harder for Meg to justify her choice of career to Mamori.  
  
The lie about what her parents once did, what she now did, had served Meg well throughout the years. As far as her friends were concerned, Meg, and her Provider and Nurturer both before her, patrolled the wilderness just outside the white wall, breaking up fights between Ferals, quashing any hints of organized violence, distributing charitable donations of clothing, and generally keeping the peace between White City and the Outside.  
  
It was an entertaining lie, made her sound like some sort of valiant guardian.  
  
But, as was so often the case, the truth was less savory and harder to swallow for those who didn’t understand. Meg was a wrangler. It was an unofficial, off-the-books position in White City, and though the authorities were well aware of what she and others like her did for a living, they didn’t interfere unless there was due cause. They didn’t want to get their hands dirty.  
  
A wrangler’s job was simple: capture Ferals on the Outside and deliver them into White City to be Pets.  
  
While Meg maintained hope that the others would accept this part of her lifestyle without too much controversy, she knew Mamori was going to be a hard sell. Mamori rejected the very idea of Pets at a deep-down, to the bones, primordial level, so the revelation that Meg actually supplied the city with Pets would not be a welcome one. But she still had six days to think of a positive spin for her line of work as well as her erotic proclivities. And that was more than enough time.  
  
Perhaps it would behoove her to recruit another member from their club over to her philosophy. At least on the matter of Pet love.  
  
Together Meg and Rui ate the breakfast he made at a table just big enough for two. The food was exquisite; he was a far better cook than she could ever hope to be. Or maybe meat just always tasted incredible. Meat was to eating what Pets were to fucking. It really was a pity that partaking in either was a crime.  
  
Clad in her school uniform, she left for the shuttle station, but not before giving Rui a long kiss on the mouth, letting his nimble tongue part her lips and probe the hot space inside.  
  
“Try to stay out of trouble while I’m at school,” she said coyly by way of goodbye. “If you get bored, go over our work orders for next week.” Her Rui wasn’t only useful in the bed and the kitchen, he was a working Pet.

* * *

  
Because she lived the furthest away from school, Meg was the first to board the shuttle, at least on those days when she chose to be on time. At the second stop, Mamori, Suzuna, and Koharu would join her.  
  
Only today it was just Suzuna and Koharu.  
  
“Did Mamori go up to school early?” Meg asked. It was the only conceivable explanation. Mamori was never late or absent. Ever.  
  
Suzuna Taki, the underclassman who was far too spunky for her own good, just shrugged her shoulders. “She messaged me this morning to say she was taking a meditation day. I bet she’s trying to think up something for our club. Or maybe she’s just bored of all the pointless review they always make us do at the beginning of a new school year.”  
  
That’s right. Suzuna idolized Mamori so naturally she would accept the explanation without measuring it against Mamori’s spotless attendance record. Mamori was the one person in their school, possibly in all of White City, who had never taken a single meditation day her entire life. But then, Suzuna was neither the most critical thinker of their group nor the most trenchant observer.  
  
Meg was both. Mamori’s absence immediately raised her suspicions and she immediately, surreptitiously started searching for clues.  
  
Hmm. Koharu Wakana hadn’t said anything yet. True, she was a shy one, not inclined to running her mouth, but she usually did say hello to her friends in the morning. Also, whether she realized it or not, she was squirming, shuffling her feet and drumming her little fingers nervously against her leg. Koharu knew something and Meg was going to extract it.  
  
When Koharu sat down two seats away, Meg shifted over one so they were right next to each other. A tiny tremor from her quiet friend indicated that she was exuding just the right amount of intimidation.  
  
“Hmmm... So Mamori is taking a meditation day,” she said. “Aren’t either of you worried? I mean, Mamori isn’t the type to miss a school day. So if she’s taking a meditation day... Something bad must have happened.”  
  
“Something bad?” Suzuna said, voice laced with fear. “But wouldn’t she tell us? We’re her best friends.”  
  
Meg shook her head as if the situation were oh-so unfortunate. “That’s how I know it must be something serious. If it is big enough to keep it _secret_.” She put emphasis on the last work and earned a teensy squeal from Koharu. Good, it was working.  
  
“Nobody wants to keep a secret, especially from her friends. Trying to hold onto a secret is like trying to hold onto something very, very hot. At first you think you can handle it, but the longer you hold it the hotter it burns until you can’t even think straight because the pain is so blinding you’d cut off your own hand just to make it stop. So if Mamori is willing to go through that, well, maybe we should be worried...”  
  
Another high-pitched sound oozed from Koharu’s pursed lips. Her forehead glistened.  
  
Almost there, Meg went in for the kill. “Oh, were you trying to say something, Koharu? Maybe about a time you had to keep a secret and it just tortured you from the inside? But I bet it felt amazing when you finally shared it with somebody, right? Just like it will be for Mamori when... well, _if_ she eventually tells us.”  
  
“MamorihasaPet!” Koharu blurted it out as a single compressed word and the moment after she did, both her hands slapped over her mouth.  
  
Meg’s jaw fell open. “A Pet? _Our_ Mamori has a Pet?” This was even juicier than she’d expected.  
  
“Is he cute?” Suzuna asked, her dark eyes shimmering with excitement.  
  
That was the first thing she asked? Suzuna was destined to be a Pet lover, she just didn’t know it yet. Unfortunately, since the kid didn’t have a Pet of her own, Meg couldn’t initiate her yet.  
  
“I don’t know where he came from,” Koharo peeped anxiously. “He was hurt so she asked me to treat him. He... he’s not like any Pet I’ve ever seen. He... he’s scary.” When she said it her eyes contained genuine fear. “Mamori swore me to secrecy, though, so you can’t let her know that you know. Please, please don’t tell?”  
  
“I won’t tell on you,” Meg said, acting cool even though her mind was swimming. Mamori had a Pet. This was beyond big. It was huge.  
  
Suzuna spent the rest of the ride to school hovering around Koharu and bombarding her with questions about the mystery Pet, the vast majority of which Koharu was unable to answer.  
  
“I’m sorry. I don’t know. I already told you everything I know.”  
  
Meg had more than a few questions of her own, but it wasn’t worth her time bother Koharu when she clearly knew nothing. She had an urge to just cut class and go over to Mamori’s house to investigate, but she didn’t want to implicate Koharu for squealing—Meg did have honor—and she didn’t want to use up her own meditation days. So she would just have to go to school as if nothing exciting and earth-shaking had happened.  
  
On the plus side, this unexpected turn of events would almost certainly make it easier to introduce her lifestyle to Mamori.  
  
When Maruko Himuro boarded at the last stop, Meg idly wondered what kind of relationship she had with her Pets. It had become a habit of hers, watching Pet owners and trying gauge who among them was a closet Pet-erosexual or might just need some gentle coaxing to realize it. And now even anti-Pet Mamori had a Pet of her own.  
  
Life in White City was getting more interesting every day.

* * *

  
Inside their classroom, Julie Sawai was already at her desk, bent over her tablet with a pensive expression on her face. Now there was Pet-erosexual in deep denial.  
  
As Meg walked past, she couldn’t resist stealing a downward glance at what had her friend so transfixed. It wasn’t even a program or a book that Julie was staring at, just the background image on her tablet screen, a photo she had taken with her two Pets. Kotaro, Julie’s Pet since she was five, had his arm thrown around her, his cheek pressed against hers as he grinned widely. He wasn’t an unattractive Pet, Meg had to admit, with his thicket of spiked black hair and dark, v-shaped eyebrows that gave him a appealingly sulky look. Julie’s face in the photo was noticeably distressed, her wide hazel eyes aimed down at the red blur that was her other Pet, Akaba, as Kotaro attempted to shove him out of the frame.  
  
Those three clearly had some issues.  
  
And Meg had decided that she was finally going to intervene. Mamori adopting a Pet signaled the start of a new era for all of them. An era of change. No more watching Julie mope about her Pet problems. All she needed was a gentle nudge in the right direction and Meg was the perfect person to give it.  
  
“Morning Julie,” she said as she took her seat.  
  
Julie looked up, blinking dazedly, as if she’d just been snapped out of hypnosis. “Oh hey, Meg,” she said genially. “You’re on time today.”  
  
“You know how I operate,” Meg said. “You were staring at your tablet background pretty intensely there. Problems at home?”  
  
“Sorry, I guess I make it kind of obvious,” Julie sighed through wistful smile. “Just the same old story. Kotaro still hates Akaba and gets upset whenever I try to include Akaba in activities. I’m worried that he resents me for bringing another Pet into the house, but I don’t know how to get it through to him that he’s still special to me and that I never found him inadequate. He really is such an idiot. I just...”  
  
“Enough talking,” their teacher said sharply, slicing off the end of Julie’s sentence. “Class will now begin.”  
  
But Meg still managed to get in one more quick whisper. “Let’s continue this conversation at lunch.”

* * *

  
“You’ve always had a close relationship with your Kotaro, haven’t you?”  
  
Meg and Julie were having lunch in the roof garden, which was technically a violation of school rules, but since Meg knew the locations and coverage of all the school’s security cameras she was confident that they wouldn’t get caught. The two of them were perched on the edge of a large planter, their lunches balanced on their laps.  
  
“Yeah,” Julie said, a faint blush in her cheeks. “I got him for my birthday when I turned five. After my...” The sentence caught in her throat briefly. “After my Nurta passed away. But, uh, you already knew that. Kotaro has always been my best friend. He and I grew up doing everything together. Eating, playing, bathing. He even sleeps in my bed with me.”  
  
Meg nearly choked on her pudding. How was she just now learning this? “Kotaro sleeps with you? And wait, did you say _bathing_?”  
  
The pink in Julie’s face deepened. “Of course we don’t bathe together anymore. That was only when we were really little.”  
  
“And the sleeping arrangements?” Meg asked with a raised eyebrow.  
  
“He, uh... he still sleeps with me,” Julie answered sheepishly. “I got him his own bed, but he says it’s uncomfortable. My Prova does not approve at all. Says I’m too old to be sleeping with my Pets.”  
  
“Pets? Plural?” Meg was learning more at school today than she ever had before. “So the red-haired one, Akaba, he sleeps in your bed, too?”  
  
“He did for a little while,” said Julie. “But he doesn’t anymore. See, I adopted Akaba last year when Kotaro kept whining about how lonely he got when I was a school. Akaba’s previous owner was elderly and had passed away and I thought he could be a nice companion for Kotaro. But Kotaro hated the new Pet from the very first day and I still have no idea why.”  
  
Meg wanted to shout: _Because he’s jealous, you idiot! That’s why!_ But she held her tongue, determined to stick to her plan. Still, it amazed her how her otherwise intelligent friend could be so completely dense about what was going on in her own home.  
  
The story continued. “When Akaba first came home, I wanted to make him feel like a member of the family so I invited him to sleep in bed with us. And Kotaro just went crazy, kicking and shoving every night until Akaba finally gave up and started sleeping alone. So it’s just me and Kotaro now. But...” Her voice trailed off and her eyes went down to the untouched lunch on her lap.  
  
Whatever came next had to be good if it was so hard to spit out.  
  
“You can tell me,” Meg said in her most sympathetic tone. “I can keep your secret. Just look at how well I’ve kept my own.”  
  
There was a moment of hesitation on Julie’s end as she deliberated and after a deep breath she shared. “Well, ever since the whole bed debacle with Akaba, Kotaro has been a lot more clingy when we sleep together. He pretty much wraps himself around me. It’s almost like he’s afraid I’m gonna kick him out of the bed too.”  
  
Once again, Meg thought words that she couldn’t say. _Uh, no, Julie, that’s not it at all._  
  
“So you’re afraid he’ll feel rejected if you tell him that it bothers you?” she said instead.  
  
“What? No.” Julie shook her head, an embarrassed smile twitching on her small mouth. “I’m not... bothered by it. It’s just... When he’s that close, I can’t help but feel... I’m very aware of his, uh, body pressed against me. And, oh this is so stupid, but...” She paused to loose a nervous chuckle. “For some reason my heart starts to race and I can’t sleep. So I guess the real problem lies with me.”  
  
A feeling of nostalgia, warm and delicate as Rui’s sleeping breaths, bloomed in the center of Meg’s chest. She recognized Julie’s symptoms, of course, because she had experienced the exact same thing. Julie was so close to discovering it on her own; if she weren’t so damn clueless, Meg wouldn’t even need to nudge her.  
  
Time to get transgressive.  
  
“So, I guess you’ve felt it then, huh?” she said as casually as she could.  
  
“It?” Julie tilted her head curiously. Those enormous eyes made her look like an ingenue, just begging to be corrupted.  
  
Meg smiled suggestively. “Oh, you know, that thing Pets have between their legs that humans don’t. Kotaro’s ever get hard when he holds you oh so tight? I bet it does. And you’ve felt it pressing into your thigh through your pretty pink pajama pants, haven’t you?”  
  
In an instant, Julie’s face reached maximum scarlet and she spluttered. “I... Well, yes... But how did you...?”  
  
“Relax,” Meg said coolly. “It’s nothing to get freaked out about. Listen, since you’ve been so open with me, I’m going to let you in on a little secret about that particular part of a Pet’s anatomy: the Pet doesn’t control that thing; it controls him.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Julie asked, still glowing bright red and barely able to maintain her composure.  
  
Meg felt her heart quicken. It was strangely exhilarating to finally talk to someone about this illicit subject. “Well you know that tiny little spot that humans have down there that causes pleasure when touched?” Julie bobbed her head awkwardly and Meg continued. “The thing that hangs between a Pet’s legs, the whole thing, is made of the exact same stuff.”  
  
“Wait, are you trying to tell me that Kotaro needs to... to, uh... have... sex... with another Pet?” Julie struggled to get the words out. “He never... he never expressed any interest in doing... that... before. If his treatment of Akaba is any indication, he doesn’t even like other Pets.”  
  
 _He wants you!_ Meg felt like shouting. “Well that’s good,” she actually said. “That means you are poised to seize control. If you want it, that is. Julie, my friend, you can show Kotaro that he is special to you and get him to do what you want in one fell swoop.” She stopped, waited.  
  
“Go on,” Julie said.  
  
“Remember what I told you, the thing between his legs controls the Pet. So if you want to tame Kotaro, just grab the thing between his legs and play with it.”  
  
“Play with it?”  
  
“Stroke it,” Meg said. “If it’s not already hard, it will get hard. Or you can lick it or put it in your mouth if you’d prefer. He’ll let you know if you’re doing it right.”  
  
Julie was practically curling into herself, her body was scrunched up so tight with embarrassment. “That’s...”  
  
“He’ll be so grateful for the pleasure that he’ll pretty much do whatever you say, even get along nice with Akaba. But if you’re still not satisfied with the results, you can unleash the ultimate Pet control technique and let him put it in the slit between your legs.”  
  
As expected, Julie’s reaction was shock. “You mean fornication? But that’s how humans get the Sickness! It’s totally dangerous! Not to mention illegal!”  
  
All objections that Meg had anticipated. “Illegal, yes. But only if you get caught. Dangerous, no. Parents and teachers love to spread their horror stories about the Sickness. But if it was really that big a risk, wouldn’t they just ban Pets from the city? Would we really be allowed to keep these creatures if they were that infectious? Lots of humans probably fornicate with their Pets and never get the Sickness and never get caught. It’s not just me.”  
  
Julie had been shunning eye contact since the moment Kotaro’s private anatomy was mentioned, but now her gaze swung back up to Meg’s face. “So you really do that? With your Pet, Rui?”  
  
Hearing her friend ask this in a voice that was curious but not judgmental, send a pleasant fluttering through Meg’s stomach. A smile that wasn’t pre-planned settled her lips. “For almost a year. And I haven’t gotten the Sickness.”  
  
“So it’s really not as common as they say?” Julie asked.  
  
“Not by half. And there are ways to reduce your risk, too: certain times of the month when it’s safer to fornicate, having him pull out before he finishes, even plants you can eat. I could tell you more if that’s something you think you might need to know.”  
  
Julie’s eyes returned to her lap. “I’m still not sure. Doing that kind of thing... with Kotaro. When I try to imagine it, it’s just too weird. I don’t think I could ever do that. No offense, Meg.”  
  
“None taken,” she said, putting a hand on Julie’s shoulder and rubbing in soothing circles. “And I would never, ever suggest that you do something you aren’t comfortable with. Just don’t rule it out as a possibility later down the road. And if you have any questions at all, you know you can always message me.”  
  
“Thanks,” Julie said, voice soft and very slightly trembling. “And, uh, thanks for trusting me with this information about you.”  
  
“No problem at all.” Meg smiled as she stood up. “I guess we’d better head back to our classroom. Oh, but there is one more thing I forgot to mention. For what it’s worth, fornication feels as good for the human as it does for the Pet. Just thought that you should know.”  
  
She swung her hips from side to side a little as she walked back to the door that led into the school, leaving Julie to follow after at her own pace. She had earned her swagger today. The message probably wouldn’t come today, or tomorrow, or any day this week. But by the time the Household Pet Liberation Movement had their next meeting, Meg was sure that Julie would come to her and ask her about techniques for avoiding the Sickness.  
  
And people thought that Mamori was the only activist in town.


	5. The Good Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mamori and Hiruma start getting to know each other and have a serious clash of egos.

 

  
**The Good Fight**

_“Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.”_  
—William James

* * *

  
Mamori’s eyes opened dry and gummy on the raw light of a new morning. Her spine ached and it took a second to realize that it was because her butt was in a chair while her head was on the bed. And then the reason her whole body wasn’t sleeping in her bed flooded over her like a wave and she bolted upright with a small gasp.  
  
“Hiruma!”  
  
He was still in the bed where she’d left him, his yellow hair flattened against her white pillowcase, an analog books loosely gripped in his slender fingers. Only when he’d finished the page he was on did he react to his name, looking up at Mamori with bored eyes.  
  
“Look who finally decided to wake up,” he said. “About fucking time.”  
  
“Time,” she echoed, the groggier parts of her brain just now sparking into lucidity. “What time is it?”  
  
“How the fuck should I know?” Hiruma grumbled, returning to his book.  
  
It only now struck Mamori how strange this was. “Is that one of my books?”  
  
“Well I didn’t bring it with me,” he snorted, not even giving her the courtesy of eye contact. He turned a page and added, “I found it in your bag.”  
  
“You shouldn’t go through other people’s things,” Mamori scolded as she plucked the book from his hands.  
  
“Hey! I was reading that!” he snarled, shooting her a vitriolic scowl.  
  
She was unable to keep a trace of glee from her voice as she told him, “And know you’re not. So you can read our language, too, eh? That’s surprising.”  
  
“What can I say? I’m a surprising person.” The words were dismissive, but there was a barb of sarcasm buried within them that was distinctly belittling.  
  
Was Hiruma really so sensitive as to be insulted by her assumptions about Feral literacy rates?  
  
Also curious was the fact that he’d referred to himself as a person. Mamori had never actually considered what Ferals and Pets called themselves. She wouldn’t dare ask him—maybe later, if she could get him to entreat with her more civilly, but they were definitely not there yet. She had to say something to him, though, so she looked down at the book she’d confiscated in the hopes that it might start a polite conversation.  
  
The title on the volume’s cover was hand-written: _A Treatise on the Ethical Treatment of Pets_. Like all analog books, there was no author given, but Mamori knew who wrote it. Or rather, she remembered writing it, three years ago. _A Treatise on the Ethical Treatment of Pets_ was the first book she had ever written, which had been distributed along the underground trading circuits and eventually found its way back to her.  
  
And Hiruma had been reading it.  
  
Self-consciousness jabbed her in the stomach and she opened her mouth awkwardly to speak. “This book...”  
  
But he interrupted her before she could ask what he thought of it. “Now that you’re up, how about pointing me towards your toilet? I gotta take a piss.”  
  
Mamori wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Take a piss? Well, I assume you’re referring to relieving yourself, in which case, my bathroom is through that door.” She pointed, but as her eyes fell on Hiruma’s thickly bandaged arm and leg her annoyance ebbed and she felt a twinge of compassion for him. “Do you need help getting over there?”  
  
“I think I can manage,” he said, looking at as if she’d just asked to spoon feed him like a baby. His good arm levered him into an upright position and he cradled the broken one against his chest as he swung both his feet off the bed. The instant he put weight on his sprained ankle he winced visibly though he made no sound.  
  
Mamori watched, feeling her own limbs throb in sympathy, as Hiruma forced himself to take one step after another. His progress wasn’t quick, but it was still remarkable considering the severity and freshness of his injuries, combined with the fact that he hadn’t had any sort of pain medication.  
  
“Please, just let me help,” she said when he reached the halfway point and had to pause. “You’re obviously in a lot of pain. There’s no reason for you to act so tough.” Without waiting for him to reject her offer, she attached herself to his side like a crutch.  
  
He muttered something under his breath, but it was mostly too low for her to hear. “Fucking m...” At the bathroom door he detached himself and snidely said, “I don’t suppose you’re going to come in and help me aim, too?”  
  
“Just go!” Mamori huffed, shoving him over the threshold. There was heat in her cheeks and hoped he’d just shut the door before he noticed any hint of pink that might be showing. Help him aim? What kind of pervert would say something like that? He may speak the human language, but he was Feral to the core.  
  
With a sigh, she sank down to the floor and sat with her back against the doorpost. There were so many things that she wanted to ask him. Where did he come from? Who had taught him to speak and read the human language? Why was his appearance so different from other Ferals? Why had he broken into White City?  
  
She wondered if she’d ever get to ask them. And if she did, would Hiruma, with his spiteful personality, even answer?  
  
The door opened and he limped out. This time he didn’t try to resist her help and let her support him the entire trip back to the bed. He settled back onto the bed, on top of a rather large burgundy stain that was his own dried blood. A frown twisted down the corners of his mouth and displayed his bottom row of pointed teeth.  
  
“So...” she began slowly.  
  
“So what?” he grunted.  
  
She folded her arms over her chest. Of course he would make this as difficult as possible. “Well, now that I’ve saved your life and am harboring you in my bedroom like a criminal, I feel like I deserve a little explanation.”  
  
“Do you even _have_ criminals in this fucking cage?” he asked disdainfully.  
  
“No. Not that I know of. But if we did, I imagine they’d be an awful lot like you.” It was a true sentiment, but she immediately wished she hadn’t said. Being mean-spirited would get her nowhere with this one. “I’m sorry,” she said tightly. “Look, finding one of... you in the street next to my house was not something I ever anticipated. I’d like to help you get healed up and on your merry way, but the truth is I don’t know what to do with you. So if you could just give me something to work with...”  
  
He rolled his eyes disdainfully. “Fucking manager...”  
  
“What did you call me?” she asked.  
  
He looked straight into her eyes and said, “I called you a fucking manager. Manager is the closest translation I could think of for what my kind call your kind. Well, one of the things we call you anyway. There’s also softies, lump-chests, dickless... But fucking managers is the most common term.”  
  
“Why managers?” Mamori asked, ignoring the other derogatory labels for the time being. She was genuinely interested as research for her anti-Pet platform. “Is it because my kind manages all the wealth? Because we manage the functions of the city? Because we manage your kind?”  
  
“It’s because you _think_ you manage the whole fucking world!” Hiruma responded impatiently. “You try to regulate and control everything, but the only thing you actually _manage_ is to be a huge pain in the ass for the rest of us.”  
  
“Not all of us are like that!” Mamori snapped defensively. “Couldn’t you tell from the book you were just reading?”  
  
“That book is just a bunch of sentimental dreck. All ignorant, mawkish idealism without a drop of cold hard reality.”  
  
How dare he! Mamori wanted to feel nothing but outrage, but there was also an unwelcome stab of shame mixed into her reaction. If it were a fellow human criticizing one of her manifestos, she would swear that person was in the wrong, but Hiruma was one of the race she was trying to defend. Was it possible that her arguments weren’t as well constructed as she’d thought?  
  
“I... the author, that is, wrote that several years ago,” she said, calm and prim as she could muster. “I am sure her position has evolved since then. You really can’t expect too much from an author’s first work.”  
  
Hiruma’s mouth crooked up in a jagged smirk. “Oh I see. You wrote the book. Have your beliefs really evolved? Or do you still think of my kind as, oh what was it? ‘A race without the capacity to fight against a cruel regime that forces them to choose between subjugation and savage wilderness?’”  
  
“I...” Her voice was stalled, the swelling shame blocking its exit. Why couldn’t she defend her beliefs? She’d spent so many hours poring over the analogs written anonymously by others like her. This was her cause! She’d rehearsed her convictions in her head over and over, but now that she actually needed to share them, she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth.  
  
“Look, fucking manager,” Hiruma began to say, with a smug look on his face.  
  
“I just don’t believe that one race should determine the fate of another!” she finally was able to blurt out. “And my name is Mamori!”  
  
He blinked at her and said nothing. All that smugness had dissolved very quickly and soon a look of mild entertainment took its place. “You are an amusing manager, Mamori,” he said.  
  
“And you are quarrelsome and unpleasant Feral, Hiruma,” she said. If he was going to use epithets, so would she. “In exchange for my amusing you, how about you tell me what your business in White City is?”  
  
“Trying to get the fuck out,” he said tersely.  
  
Mamori was incredulous. “Out? But you nearly got yourself killed trying to get in. Why would you go through all that and then immediately want to leave?”  
  
He glared at her as if explaining it to her was a complete waste of his precious time. “Because it’s the wrong fucking city. That’s why.”  
  
“Wrong city?” That didn’t make any sense; White City was the only city.  
  
“I figured it out when I went through your bag this morning,” he went on. “Your student ID card says White City: Sector 7.”  
  
It was only because she was so intrigued about the idea of another city that Mamori spared him a second reprimand about going through her things. “What other city were you trying to get to?” she asked, trying to  keep the desperate curiosity out of her tone.  
  
“The city that shines like gold, Empire City,” he grumbled. “Now I’ve already told you more than you deserve to know.”  
  
So he said, but now that he’d revealed the existence—or supposed existence—of Empire City, an avalanche of new questions had been released in Mamori’s brain. And somehow it only just occurred to her that he was in no position to be denying her answers.  
  
“Tell me about Empire City,” she said. Not a question but a gentle command.  
  
“No,” he grunted. “Why do you need to know?”  
  
“I don’t need to know,” she said. “I want to know.”  
  
“And why should I tell you?” From his haughty tone, it would seem he thought he had the upper hand.  
  
He thought wrong, of course.  
  
“Because if you don’t tell me, I will turn you in to city authorities,” she said.  
  
Hiruma frowned deeply and drew up his shoulders. “So the ethics warrior isn’t above resorting to blackmail?”  
  
“Like you wouldn’t resort to blackmail?”  
  
Her question elicited a wide, wicked grin that showed off all those pointy white teeth. “Oh, I abso-fucking-lutely would.” Having lost the fight—though he would never ever admit it—he carried on as if it was his own decision to tell her more. “I don’t know very much about Empire City because I’ve been there myself. But somebody I know went there and I am trying to find him.”  
  
“Why did your friend go to this city?” Mamori asked. “Since you seem to have such disdain for my kind, I would assume any friend of yours would try to avoid our cities.”  
  
Hiruma snorted. “He’s not a _friend_. That’s one of _your_ words. What Musashi is to me doesn’t have any equivalent in your language. But anyways, he went to Empire City to get medicine for his father and never came back.”  
  
The story was interesting, but there was a Feral word in there that Mamori didn’t recognize. “What’s a father?”  
  
“I suppose you wouldn’t know that, fucking manager,” he said. “A father is a mature one of my people who looks out for a younger one from the time he is very small until he is strong enough and wise enough to be on his own. The father finds food for the young one and teaches him how to find food for himself. He protects the young one.”  
  
“So a father is sort of like a Nurturer and a Provider combined,” she mused aloud.  
  
“A father isn’t like any of your stupid city dwelling, manager crap,” Hiruma said sharply.  
  
“Do you have a father?” Mamori asked.  
  
He said nothing, eyes sliding away from her, and she knew that she couldn’t extort a response from him on this question.  
  
“We care for our young, too,” she said in a softening voice. “Our two species aren’t really that different. We both have the same needs for food and water and mental stimulation... and affection. That’s why I wrote that book. And three more after it. I’ll admit that don’t know everything, I just want to do what is right.”  
  
For several drawn-out seconds, they just looked at each other. Mamori tried to fathom what was going on inside the brain behind those fierce eyes; his stare felt like it was boring deep down into her psyche and it unnerved her.  
  
He broke apart their gazes with a sigh. “You know, If you try to carry the weight of the whole fucking world it’ll just crush you to death.”  
  
A pang of sadness coursed through her. “It’s not like I can stop myself from caring. If there is any chance that I can make a difference in this world, I have to take it.”  
  
Another long silence followed, stretching out uncomfortably until Hiruma finally said, “Well, I guess there is one thing you and I have in common.”  
  
Mamori’s stomach punctuated their conversation with a loud growl and a quick check of the clock on the wall indicated that it was already almost one in the afternoon. She’d slept in later than she realized.  
  
“If I’m hungry, you must be famished,” she said. “I’m going to go downstairs and get us some food.”  
  
“I’ve gone longer than this without eating,” Hiruma said, like it was something to be proud of. “But go ahead. Don’t worry about leaving me. It’s not like I can run away.”  
  
“I’ll be right back,” she said before slipping out the door and closing it behind her.  
  
Downstairs, Mamori found her Nurturer in the activity room, working out on an exercise machine with headphones covering her ears and her eyes fixed on the vidscreen. The top news story was just a holdover from yesterday, the newly vacated senate seat, which had to be filled within one hundred days.  
  
Under different circumstances, Mamori would have stopped to watch as she still had a vested interest in any political appointments. But right now she just wanted to get in and out of the kitchen without being noticed. She moved on tiptoes, slinking well outside of her Nurturer’s peripheral vision and used the same route for the return trip. In one hand she balanced a platter laden with protein bars, fiber cakes, and vitamin enriched pudding, as well as the entire bottle of sweet-syrup. In her other hand she carried a pitcher of water, which she had to set down to open the door to her bedroom.  
  
Hiruma was sitting up in the bed, his attention aimed down at his lap. He was growling to himself and didn’t appear to notice that she’d returned. “Worthless. Fucking worthless. That fucking dread-head must have known I’d steal it and planted a fake. Bet he never even had a real map to begin with, the smarmy little prick. I should’ve just asked the fucking baldie.”  
  
Rather than announce herself, Mamori felt compelled to ask, “Who is the fucking baldie?”  
  
Much to her surprise, he didn’t tell her to mind her own business and instead gave her an actual answer of sorts. “He’s a bleeding heart do-gooder like you. Heh, you two’d probably get along great.”  
  
“You should eat something,” Mamori said, setting the plate and pitcher on the bedside table. She took a protein bar for herself and sat down in the chair where her rear end had spent the night. Her eyes strayed curiously to the large scrap of paper that was spread over Hiruma’s lap. “That’s a map? May I look at it?”  
  
“Knock yourself out,” he said irritably. “The thing is fucking worthless, mind you. Though I guess that doesn’t matter since you’ll never leave this wretched place. Born in a cage and die in a cage. That’s your kind’s way.”  
  
Mamori closed her eyes and drew in a calming breath, mentally reminding herself that he was just trying to get her riled up and that acting insulted would just be following his script. Without saying a word, she picked up the map and stretched it out in front of her.  
  
It was a crude map, limned in some dark brown pigment on a piece of yellowed, rough-woven fabric. All of the writing was in a foreign alphabet and she realized, with equal measures of surprise and awe, that Ferals had their own written language. Amazing how a few hours with Hiruma was all it took to reveal just how limited her knowledge of the species she championed actually was.  
  
Despite being unable to read the labels, Mamori recognized forests and streams and vast fields, and also the perfectly circular shape of White City’s outer walls. It was small, no bigger than her thumbnail; if the map was drawn to scale, it covered an extensive area. There were three other shapes that could be interpreted as cities, spread far afield from each other. A pentagon roughly the same size as White City and a larger irregular shape each had Feral writing under them, but the smallest city, an oval, had no label.  
  
Mamori had woken up believing that she was in the only human civilization in the middle of a sprawling, environmentally degraded wasteland and here, in front of her eyes, was glaring evidence to the contrary. Even if the map was inaccurate, as Hiruma claimed, he readily acknowledged the existence of other cities.  
  
A sudden, loud gagging noise interrupted her moment of reverie and she looked up from the map to see Hiruma with a bitten fiber cake in his hand and a disgusted grimace on his face . “Yech! What the fuck is this? Do you actually eat this shit?”  
  
“Our food is formulated for maximum nutritional value,” she answered, hoping it wouldn’t lead to a rant about how horrible human cuisine was when she’d much rather talk about the map.  
  
“Well it’s not formulated for taste, that’s for sure.”  
  
“Here,” she huffed, grabbing the bottle of sweet-syrup and giving his cake a generous drizzle. “Makes everything taste better.”  
  
He took another bite and immediately spit it out. “You trying to kill me, fucking manager? If I have to eat it, I’ll eat it without that nasty sweet crap. Ugh, I can’t wait until I get out of here and back to real food.”  
  
Despite his complaining, Hiruma ate almost every piece of food that was on the plate; he must have been starving. Once he’d finished and washed it all down with the entire pitcher of water that he insisted tasted wrong, Mamori saw her opening to ask more questions about the Outside. The moment she opened her mouth to speak, though, her Nurturer’s voice came up the stairs and filtered through the door.  
  
“Mamori, dear, Suzuna is here to see you.”  
  
Suzuna was here? A bolt of panic struck Mamori. She couldn’t expose sweet, innocent Suzuna to sneering, foul-mouthed Hiruma. It would be unconscionable, not to mention that Suzuna was not the best at keeping secrets.  
  
“I’m going to go tell her that I can’t talk right now,” she said, and went for the door, her pulse drumming. When she opened it just a crack Suzuna was right there waiting with an eager grin, and Mamori’s stomach backflipped.  
  
“Hey Mamori!” Suzuna chimed merrily. “Since you never take meditation days, I got worried and I thought I’d come and check on you.” She sounded excited, not worried. Which could only mean...  
  
Suzuna knew.  
  
And if Suzuna knew, it meant that Koharu had told. And there was only one person who could’ve gotten Koharu to spill.  
  
“Meg...” Mamori muttered under her breath as her hand curled into a tight fist.  
  
“What was that?” Suzuna asked, blinking innocently.  
  
Mamori had to think on the spot. “I said I beg your forgiveness, but I really don’t think I can hang out this afternoon. I’m working on an independent project and I really need to focus.” If there was a chance her intuition was wrong and Suzuna didn’t know anything, Mamori couldn’t go slinging accusations.  
  
Suzuna was practically bouncing in her spot. “I could help you! Please? It must be an interesting project if you’d miss school for it.”  
  
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Hiruma rumbled. “Even I can tell she knows I’m in here, so just let her in already and shut that fucking door.”  
  
He was right, of course. And since Suzuna knew, the open door was far more of a liability than she was. Nonetheless dreading how this would unfold, Mamori pulled Suzuna inside, closed the door, and braced herself. “Suzuna, this is...”  
  
“Hiruma,” he finished. “If she didn’t already hear that much from your other squealing little friend, I’m sure she’d wheedle it out eventually. The whole fucking city probably knows I’m here now.” Then he flashed an unsettling fake smile. “Nice to meet you, Suzuna.”  
  
“Hi Hiruma,” she chirped.  
  
“Keep it down, okay?” Mamori said. This was not a good situation. Something bad was going to happen; she could feel it. “My parents don’t know about him, so you have to be quiet.”  
  
Unfortunately, this only seemed to ramp up Suzuna’s enthusiasm. “A secret Pet?” she said in an excited whisper. “That is so cool! And so like you, Mamori! Does this mean Pets are okay now? Can I get one, too?”  
  
“I’m nobody’s fucking Pet!” Hiruma hissed.  
  
Suzuna didn’t even flinch. Her eyes sparkled and she was even smiling. “He’s perfect for you, Mamori!”  
  
Mamori could hardly believe what she was hearing. “Him? Perfect for me? You can’t be serious, Suzuna.”  
  
“I’m completely serious,” Suzuna said. “You’re against having Pet. He’s against being a Pet. Sounds like a perfect match to me. Plus he’s totally cool looking.”  
  
Mamori had always suspected that Suzuna actually did like Pets and wanted one of her own but didn’t want Mamori’s disapproval. And now she was certain. “If you got to know his personality, you’d change your mind pretty fast. He’s disagreeable and nasty.”  
  
“Oh, so anyone who doesn’t agree with you is disagreeable and nasty?” Hiruma said in a disagreeable, nasty tone. “From my point of view, you’re a supercilious little know-it-all and I’d pity anyone who got stuck living as your fucking Pet.”  
  
Suzuna laughed. “He actually sounds like he’s smart enough to match wits with you, Mamori.”  
  
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mamori muttered. Clearly there would be no getting through to this one.  
  
So she sighed and put both her hands on her friend’s shoulders. “Look, Suzuna, I’m assuming that Meg coerced Koharu into telling you about my... guest, but that doesn’t mean that I want anyone else to know or be involved. You can’t talk about this with anyone, and you can’t get too excited about it. This is only a temporary... arrangement.”  
  
Suzuna’s lips puffed out in a cute little pout that made it impossible to be upset with her. “So you’re really not going to keep him?”  
  
Mamori and Hiruma answered simultaneously: “Absolutely not,” from the former. “No fucking way,” from the latter.  
  
With that fact doubly confirmed, Mamori continued. “Now you’d better get going. Hiruma needs his rest. As you can see he’s badly injured and...”  
  
A loud banging on the bedroom door cut her off and was followed by the sound of her Nurturer’s voice right outside.  
  
“Mamori, there’s a security officer out here who needs to speak with you. Please open your door.”  
  
“M-my door?” she uttered as if the request hadn’t made any sense. “Can’t I just talk to her through it? I am meditating after all.”  
  
Her Nurturer was not appeased. “Just a few minutes ago I swear I heard a voice that did not belong to you or Suzuna. Now open this door.”  
  
“That was me,” Mamori said. Her heart was pounding wildly now. “We were, uh, rehearsing for a class presentation where I play a mean and verbally abusive Feral. That’s all.”  
  
“Nice try, but you and Suzuna are in different classes.”  
  
“It’s nothing to be worried about,” an unfamiliar voice, the security officer, said. “You aren’t in trouble. We’re just going around questioning residents in this area about any unusual activity they may have witnessed last night. Someone discovered a trail of blood belonging to a Feral that starts at the wall and ends near hear so we’re investigating.”  
  
Mamori thought she’d cleaned up all of the blood, but she hadn’t followed it all the way back to the wall. A glare from Hiruma let her know that he was not pleased. Suzuna just gulped fretfully.  
  
“I am opening this door now,” said her Nurturer.  
  
Never before had Mamori been backed into a corner like this. Her brain had always been able to think of a solution to any problem she faced. But then she’d never faced a problem even remotely like this. Hiruma was too big to hide and he was barely fit to walk let alone escape out a second story window. And then the door opened and her time was up.  
  
Her Nurturer gaped at the scene inside the bedroom. “What in the blazes is going on here? Tell me now.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Nurta,” Mamori said, using the diminutive for once. The words came out of her mouth calm and steady even though she hadn’t planned them in advanced. “I know I should have told you sooner, but I decided to adopt a Pet. This is Hiruma and he is mine.”


	6. You Bet Your Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiruma and Mamori strike up a deal.

 

  
**You Bet Your Life**

_“Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.”_  
—Voltaire

* * *

  
“This is Hiruma and he is mine.”  
  
The words hit him like a splash of cold water, which would have been jarring if he weren’t already chilled to the bones by the events that preceded their utterance. It had all happened very fast: the bouncy little creature called Suzuna barged in and started running her yap, and mere minutes later the fucking authority arrived to tear down the remains of his short-lived peace.  
  
Fuck that mini-manager! Yeah, yeah, it wasn’t really her fault. But she’d put him off his guard and left him unprepared for the real threat. So fuck her!  
  
And now Mamori—the manager who supposedly despised the owning of Pets—had claimed him as her Pet. The audacity!  
  
Her wet blue eyes turned to him, desperation swimming in their depths, and he understood at once. Of course. This wasn’t something that she wanted or had planned. She was the author of that ridiculous book, after all, and while the arguments she’d made therein were laughably naive and bereft of factual underpinnings, her convictions were nonetheless unwavering. Mamori didn’t want Hiruma as a Pet any more than he wanted to be one. So her declaration could only mean that the alternative for him was death or worse.  
  
But the fact that she’d done it for his sake didn’t guarantee a good outcome. She was still a child by her society’s laws, filled with unwavering convictions, yes, but essentially powerless. How much of this situation did she really have any control over? She wasn’t as stupid as he’d first thought, though. If Hiruma had to entrust his fate to a fucking manager—and his stomach churned with bile at the very notion—Mamori was the only remotely acceptable choice.  
  
Still, he couldn’t overlook the fact that she was a fucking manager. And subjugation was still subjugation. Was death really any worse than being somebody’s property?  
  
No. But there was another possible fate that was.  
  
He had met a few of them on the outside, individuals of his kind who had lived in cities for a time and been released back into the world. They never make it out unscathed; the managers always take the tongues of those they set free, to prevent them from teaching their language to others and in demonstration of their dominion over what they consider an inferior species. There was no mention of this brutal practice in Mamori’s book and Hiruma wondered if she even knew about it.  
  
He could, of course, take actions to ensure his quick execution. Even with one arm and one leg out of commission, he was confident he could kill every softie in this room. He could tear out all their throats with his teeth and then they’d have to kill him. But he couldn’t murder Mamori or the little one, Suzuna. They were too young and there’d be no honor in it. And the thought of killing Mamori’s guardian didn’t sit right with him either, since it basically equated to killing someone’s father.  
  
Would taking out the fucking security be enough to earn him the death sentence he wanted?  
  
And then he remembered Musashi, and the fucking fatass, and the fucking pipsqueak, and the rest of his tribe. He’d promised them he would return and deliberately choosing death would be breaking that promise.  
  
Fuck! So much for the escape by death plan. For now he would just have to let things happen and keep his senses on high alert. He was prepared to take matters into his own hands—or sharpened teeth—if another solution didn’t present itself.  
  
“Are you serious, Mamori?” her guardian, the one she called Nurta, asked incredulously. “After years of shunning Pets, you suddenly decide to get one and choose... _this_?”  
  
Such a contemptuous reaction from a softie didn’t surprise Hiruma in the least; it was the appropriate reaction to his fearsome appearance. Mamori was the strange one for accepting it.  
  
“Adopting a Feral his age is not something that we generally recommend,” the security officer cautioned in a voice that oozed condescension. “He’s nearly full grown, may be impossible to tame. Plus he looks like a mean one. Something’s not right about his ears.”  
  
And she hadn’t even seen his teeth.  
  
Nurta cut in again, pleadingly. “Mamori, darling, wouldn’t you rather have a sweet, young Pet? One you could easily train to be well behaved and speak like a human?” She said it as if language were nothing more than a fanciful trick that Pets could be taught in order to amuse their masters.  
  
“I only want Hiruma,” Mamori said and her voice was so adamant it sent a shudder of pride through him. That fucking manager could be a commanding presence when she wanted to.  
  
Nurta was clearly overwhelmed, pressing her forehead into the palm of her hand and sighing. “I just don’t understand what is going on in that head of yours, Mamori. Didn’t you tell me as recently as yesterday morning that you could never own a Pet? And yet sometime between then and now, you obtained this... this vicious-looking creature and brought him into our home without even asking your Provider and I. Where did you even find this Hiruma?”  
  
Hiruma’s eyes were locked onto Mamori, watching her with rapt anticipation. Her ability to lie convincingly would determine what happened next. Did this wholesome creature really have it in her?  
  
“Meg Tsuyumine found him injured yesterday evening while she was patrolling outside the wall. The blood is from when she brought him here to the Wakana home. She went to Koharu first, of course, but since Koharu already has five Pets, she couldn’t keep Hiruma. So I volunteered to take him.”  
  
As Mamori told the tale, her voice and her gaze remained as steady and natural as if every word was true.  
  
“So just like that you abandoned your principles and said yes to a Pet?” said Nurta. “That’s totally not like you, Mamori.”  
  
Mamori’s arms were already crossed over her chest and now she raised one eyebrow to become the perfect portrait of a Manager Fucking Mastermind. “Would it have been ‘like me’ to let him be euthanized or sold to one of those vile Pet shows? In this case, adopting him as my Pet was the lesser of two injustices.”  
  
“Owning a Pet is a huge responsibility, you know.”  
  
“Have I ever shown myself to be irresponsible, Nurta? Besides, you _wanted_ me to have a Pet. We both know that I am more than capable of taking care of Hiruma.”  
  
There was a pause while Mamori and Nurta just looked at each other, communicating without words the way fathers and sons often did. These managers really weren’t all that different from people. And apparently the child won this silent argument, because it ended with her guardian sighing in defeat.  
  
“You’re right, Mamori. You are old enough and smart enough to make your own decisions. But you know I’m still going to worry. This Hiruma... he just gives me a bad feeling is all. Your safety is my number one priority and I don’t trust him.”  
  
She spoke of him as if he weren’t right there in the room. That’s right, she assumed he was just an uncivilized animal who could neither speak nor understand the so-called human language. Best to keep his unsanctioned linguistic abilities to himself and avoid whatever gruesome punishment it would incur. Actually, it might prove useful to be disregarded.  
  
“You really don’t need to worry,” chipper little Suzuna chimed in. “From what I’ve seen, Hiruma is a very good-natured and gentle Pet. Honest.”  
  
Was she being serious or bluffing? Hiruma couldn’t even tell. If she was serious, she was just as strange as Mamori.  
  
“I want to believe you, Suzuna,” said Nurta. Then she paused like she was going to add something more but had forgotten what that was.  
  
The fucking security officer, who had been watching all of this unfold with a dubious look on her face, finally found an opening to speak again. “Okay, if it’s settled that this one is to be your Pet, the next step is to have him chipped. You can’t have a Pet without an identification chip.”  
  
Scar tissue between Hiruma’s shoulders awakened into throbbing, burning life at the mentioned of that word. Fuck! Somehow he had forgotten all about the fucking identification chip. Fuck! He swore he’d never let them put another of those things in him. His fingers, greased with sweat, twisted like claws in the bed sheets he lay on.  
  
“Right. Of course. I’ll take him to get the chip as soon as we are done here,” Mamori said, as if it were no big deal.  
  
Hiruma felt a sting of betrayal. But why? She was still one of _them_. He’d known her half a day, scarcely long enough for him to form the opinion that she was really, at her core, any different from the other soft fucking managers.  
  
“Well, I guess I’ve got no further business here,” said the officer. Then she turned to Nurta. “Just make sure she follows through and has that one chipped. I’d hate to think of him unmonitored within our good city.”  
  
Smiling politely, Nurta said, “I’ll see to it she does.” And with that, everything appeared to be settled.  
  
After the two adults had left and their footfalls had faded down the stairs, Mamori let out a long, long breath as if she’d been holding it in her whole life. Her eyes went first to Suzuna.  
  
“You’d better get going, Suzuna,” she said, a trace of weariness weighting her voice. “I do appreciate you standing up for Hiruma. But what I said still applies; I still intend for this to be a temporary arrangement so you can’t make a big deal of it. And you absolutely cannot let anyone know that he can speak human. Understand?”  
  
The look that fell on Suzuna’s features—those great big guileless eyes in particular—was despondent. “Are you sure—like, one-hundred percent sure—you can’t keep him? Once he gets the chip it’ll be pretty hard for him to leave. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe Hiruma was meant to be yours, Mamori.”  
  
Now the little one was invoking fate? He’d had enough of this shit. “Alright, I’ve had enough of this shit,” he snarled. “Run along home, fucking mini manager. Have yourself a fucking lovely afternoon. I need a word with Mamori before she and I head off to the Peterinarian or the Chipper or whatever the fuck you call it.”  
  
“I’m going, I’m going,” Suzuna sighed. Then she plucked up her spirits and flashed him a cheery smile. “I know you’re anxious, Hiruma, and I understand why that would make you cranky. But you really are in the best possible hands. Mamori is the smartest, kindest, coolest person I know. She’ll take good care of you, Hiruma.” She turned towards Mamori. “I guess I’ll see you at school tomorrow. Tell me how it goes?”  
  
“We’ll see,” Mamori said. “Remember, keep it low-key.”  
  
As soon as it was back to just two in the room, Hiruma rounded on Mamori with a vitriolic hiss. “I hate to spoil your adorable little fantasy of ‘taking care of me,’ but I will not be having that fucking chip put into me.” That was absolutely non-negotiable.  
  
Mamori’s arms flopped to her side in obvious frustration. “You know I had no choice, Hiruma. If I’d refused to have the chip put in, that security officer would have hauled you off to be euthanized, simple as that.”  
  
“So you saved me again, for the moment,” Hiruma said ungraciously. “But did you have a plan in mind for how you would evade actually having to get the fucking chip put in me?”  
  
“Well, no.” She paused and when she resumed speaking her words were measured, almost reluctant. Clearly she knew he would be displeased with what she was saying. “Actually, I think having the identification chip installed might be the best option.”  
  
“Ah ha! So the truth finally comes out! You really aren’t all that opposed to keeping my kind as property, are you? You’re really just as sick and perverse as the rest of the managers. You were probably planning to trap me from the moment you laid eyes on me.”  
  
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Mamori said, rolling her eyes. “Once you’re fully healed and able to leave the city, I’m going to remove the chip.”  
  
“Do you have any idea how painful that is?” he snarled. “You managers put those fucking chips deep under the muscle so it takes some serious digging to get it out.”  
  
She blinked at him for a moment, lips puckered, and then her eyes widened in epiphany. “So that’s why you can speak our language.” Her voice was as light as mist. “You used to be somebody’s Pet, didn’t you, Hiruma?”  
  
He bared his teeth at her. “I never said that!”  
  
“But it’s true,” she said, without any shade of doubt. “You used to be a Pet in another city. And somehow, you managed to escape.”  
  
It was true, of course; she knew without him having to confirm it. And now she was watching him in the most unsettling way. There was curiosity in those blue eyes, but not the hollow, gawking sort sort he expected from one of her kind encountering such an unusual specimen as himself. Her interest in him wasn’t empty or clinical; she actually cared and that was something he didn’t know how to deal with.  
  
He turned his face away and grumbled. “My past is of no concern to you.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just want to know more about you. You fascinate me, Hiruma.”  
  
His chest tightened. Fuck! Why was she saying such annoying, stupid things? No, it wasn’t stupid. He was a fascinating person so her claim was perfectly reasonable. But it was that kernel of emotion buried inside the words that made them so fucking annoying. This whole situation would be a lot easier if she’d just treat him as an abject beast like she’s supposed to.  
  
Thankfully, Mamori didn’t go any further talking about her fascination with him and instead brought the conversation back to the chip, a topic that Hiruma had no uncertain feelings on.  
  
“With numbing medicine and the proper equipment, I’m sure I could remove the chip without pain,” she said. “Or if that’s not possible, I’ll figure out a way to deactivate it so you can get back out of the city undetected.”  
  
“Do you really think it’s that easy?” Hiruma said, sneering. “If your damn chips were so easy to dispense with, I wouldn’t be the only one whose ever done it. The chip monitors vital signs and if it’s outside of a living host for more than five minutes, it alerts your fucking authorities.”  
  
“Wow,” Mamori said, her mouth a perfect little o. “I guess I did know that. Or suspect it at least. But... Hiruma, how did you...?”  
  
“It doesn’t matter!” he snapped before she could finish the obvious question. “It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t something I’d want to do again unless I absolutely had to.”  
  
Mamori’s face scrunched anxiously. “And you don’t think I could contribute anything to make it less unpleasant? Tools, medicines, an extra set of hands?”  
  
Ah shit, she had that disarmingly earnest look in her eyes again, the one that made it difficult to unleash his maximum hostility on her. “Yeah, I suppose you could help in that department. But what if you change your mind? I do this and I am at your mercy and that goes against every instinct in my body.”  
  
She sighed. “I can’t offer you proof, Hiruma, just my word. If you get this chip implanted, I will see to it that you make it back to your home. You just have to trust me.”  
  
“And why should I trust the creature who just volunteered me to be her personal property without so much as consulting me? Even if it was, as you claim, to save my life, it is still an example of unpredictable and therefore pretty fucking untrustworthy behavior.”  
  
“You should trust me because you don’t have a choice,” Mamori said. “Tough as you like to pretend you are, you wouldn’t make it halfway to the wall in your condition, let alone over it. Trying to escape is a death sentence. So just trust me. Please. Like you did when you took my hand in the alley last night.”  
  
He deliberated silently for several seconds. “How long do you suppose it will take for my injuries to heal enough to get the fuck out of this place?” he asked.  
  
“I’m not a veterinarian, of course, but I would guess about six weeks for the arm. The leg will heal quicker.”  
  
Six weeks was cutting things close. He’d promised his tribe that he’d be back in ten, and already used up one getting to this city—the wrong city as it turned out. He’d also promised to have Musashi with him when he returned. Tracking him down in just three weeks would be a challenge. Not impossible, though.  
  
“Alright,” Hiruma said. “I can do six weeks. But no longer. One way or another, I am leaving this fucking cage in six weeks so you’d better keep up your end of the bargain, fucking manager. Unless you want me leaving on a trail of dead bodies.”  
  
Mamori gave a firm nod of agreement, unperturbed by his grotesque imagery. “If you allow yourself to get chipped, in the next six weeks I will figure out how to get you un-chipped and how to smuggle you out of White City. You have my word, Hiruma.”  
  
He could hardly believe what he was about to say, it felt like a jagged chunk of metal lodged in his throat. But, like she’d said, he had no choice. That, and he was starting to suspect he’d gotten brain damage when he hit the ground because he inexplicably found himself believing that Mamori would keep her promise.  
  
“Okay, it’s a deal. I’ll get the fucking chip.”  
  
That earned him a small smile from Mamori. “I’m going to go find some crutches for you and then we can head to the shuttle station.”  
  
“Yeah, whatever.” He may have agreed to it, but there was no reason for him to feign enthusiasm about it.  
  
Mamori went to the door, but paused before opening it and turned back around towards him. “Um, Hiruma?” she asked.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Since we won’t be able to converse once we’re out in public, I just wanted to ask you: if the veterinarian questions me... about your ears and your teeth, what should I tell her?”  
  
“Tell her to mind her own fucking business!” When Mamori gave him an unamused look, he let out a noise that was half sigh, half groan. “Just tell her that you don’t know. It’s the truth.”  
  
“If that’s what you want.” Her lips pursed and he could already feel what was coming next; it was about time she worked up the nerves to just ask. “Was it painful?”  
  
“What?” he asked, baffled that he’d predicted her question incorrectly. “What the fuck are you talking about?”  
  
“Having your teeth filed to points like that,” she said delicately. “And your ears cropped. It must have hurt.”  
  
For a full minute he just stared at her. Somehow she’d known that he wasn’t born with such a unique appearance. And yet, even knowing that his features were engineered by skilled hands and not by nature, she hadn’t asked who’d done it to him or why—for all she knew, the body modifications were his own handiwork. Her first concern was for what the experience had felt like to him. That tenderhearted, sheltering instinct of hers should have disgusted him but, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, it didn’t.  
  
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he said, triggering an upwelling of concern in her eyes. Maybe not disgusting, but it was still rather annoying. “Why the fuck are you looking at me like that? It’s nothing to get sad about. I made it through just fine. Now go get those fucking crutches.”  
  
“Oh, right. Be right back,” she said, pushing a smile back onto her face before exiting.  
  
Hiruma spent the few minutes he had alone contemplating the arrangement he’d just agreed to. He’d surprised himself by not fighting harder against it. The events of the past twenty-four hours must have warped his personality, made him more docile. Hopefully, it was only temporary. He wasn’t tamed. Never. A tiny chip couldn’t break his wild spirit, whether he consented to its implantation or not. He’d fought it the first time around and it had made no difference. Back then he was too small to win, this time he was too injured. Both times, the end result was him getting the chip.  
  
The difference this time was Mamori. She was a fucking manager, yes, but she was completely different from the one that had called herself his master before, the one who’d noticed his potential for violence and trained him to kill. His teeth stilled pulsed whenever he thought about what his ‘master’ did to him. It would be best if Mamori never found how truly excruciating it had been.  
  
Fuck. If he was already worrying about upsetting her after living with her for less than a day, what would he be like at the end of six weeks?  
  
The door opened and she stepped inside with a pair of metal crutches. “The stairs might be a bit tough, but I’ll help you,” she said. “Do you need to use the bathroom again before we go? Or would you like a snack? Or a drink?”  
  
“I’m fine. Stop fussing over me.” It came out sounding grouchier than he’d intended and her smile flattened.  
  
“I know you’re still wondering if you can really trust me,” she said, softly. “And if you’ve already made a huge mistake in letting me help you as much as I have. You’re probably trying to think if there is any other option.”  
  
His eyes narrowed, scrutinizing her face for any hints of where she was going with this.  
  
She continued. “I wish there was something I could do to ease your mind, Hiruma. Even just a little.”  
  
“I want you to stop worrying about my worrying, fucking manager,” he grumbled. “I’ve just consented to pretend I’m your fucking property, how cheerful am I supposed to be?”  
  
“You know I won’t consider you my property,” she said, frown deepening. “And I don’t want you thinking that I do. I don’t give a... a _fuck_ what the law says! You and I will not be master and Pet. For the next six weeks, we will be partners.”  
  
“Whoa,” he said, eyes stunned wide. “The fucking manager just used the fucking f-word.” It made him grin. “I’m glad that I’m starting to have a positive affect on you. This might not be as bad as I thought, partner.”  
  
She was flustered, all pink cheeks and pouting lips. “I didn’t mean to use that word. But you’re right, it’s not going to be bad. You won’t have to stay hidden. Once the chip is implanted, I can take you to the park or the Pet gym if you’d like.”  
  
Hiruma rolled his eyes and loosed a low groan at those suggestions. He honesty didn’t know much about what Pets who weren’t forced into fighting pits or sex shows did all day long. “You would really impose such nauseating excuses for entertainment on your partner? How about getting me more books to read? And none of that government sanctioned, sanitized for your protection bullshit you read on your little glowing squares. I want more like the one you wrote, the good stuff.”  
  
“You mean illegal analog books?” Mamori asked with a hint of coyness in her voice. “I can get more of those through trading at the Black Square if you want. Dangerous business, but of course I’ll do it for my partner.” It wasn’t just a hint; she was being flat-out coy.  
  
He sighed loudly, resigned to playing along. “And what is that you would like me to do for you in return, _partner_. Keeping in mind that my mobility and personal rights are both severely limited.”  
  
Any lingering coyness dissolved from her features as she turned cool and serious. “I want information. About the Outside, about other cities, about your kind. Over the next six weeks, I want to know everything you can tell me. And I want to know more about you, Hiruma. It would only be for my own edification, I wouldn’t use it against you or your people. I swear.”  
  
He should have known. This one had never been content living in the bubble and he was her first real window to the wider world. Her request left him torn. He could choose how much or how little truth to share with her, just as she could choose what to do with it. Even if she tried not to let anything she learned affect him through the actions she took, it might not be fully possible. She definitely gave the impression of someone who could start a revolution without even meaning to.  
  
Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.  
  
“Alright, Mamori. But let me give you fair warning, you might not like what you hear.”


	7. The Dance We Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julie can't stop thinking about Meg's advice and agonizes over what to do about Kotaro's bad behavior.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is sexually explicit.

 

 

  
**The Dance We Do**

_“Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.”_  
—Marcus Fabius Quintillian

* * *

  
After her conversation with Meg on the school roof, Julie’s ability to concentrate on class was effectively ruined. How could her brain focus on the teacher’s monotone, nasal droning after Meg had infected it with  such salacious ideas? Sexual contact with her Pet as a means of behavioral control had never even occurred to her before. Sexual contact of any kind had only ever occurred to her on a subconscious level, if that. But now it was all out in the open, in the fully conscious part of her brain, bright and flashing and impossible to lock back up.  
  
She wasn’t even thinking about whether or not to act on Meg’s advice and take matters into her own hands—”matters” being a euphemism for Kotaro’s private Pet parts. Right now she was expending all of her mental energy just trying not to think about thinking about it. And for all her efforts she wasn’t having a lick of success.  
  
In her torrid imagination, Kotaro’s lean, lanky body kept spooning against hers to the point where she could almost feel his hot breath lapping at her neck. Each time she realized where her thoughts were treading, she forced her eyes down to her tablet screen where her favorite drawing program was opened and attempted to sketch out some new fashion designs. All of her models today looked like Kotaro, and wore remarkably little for the work of someone who was ostensibly drawing clothes.  
  
 _Dammit!_ This wasn’t working.  
  
She deleted her page of sketches and started worrying her lower lip with her teeth. It was not the first time  she’d done so this afternoon; by now she figured her incisors must be thoroughly smudged with berry pink gloss. And there were still two hours to go before school let out.  
  
No matter how much she wanted to blame Meg for making her think about illicit Pet love, it was at least partially her own fault for bringing her personal problems to the notoriously unfiltered Meg Tsuyumine. She should have known better than to seek council from that one.  
  
 _Way to go, Julie. You walked right into this. Now you’re stuck thinking about Kotaro’s long, long legs and what lies between them. Stupid, Julie! Stupid, stupid, stupid!_  
  
She was so lost in her maze of anxiety that when the teacher said her name, her head snapped up and she blinked dazedly. “Huh? What did you say? I’m sorry, I, uh, I wasn’t paying attention.”  
  
“Yes, I can see that,” the teacher said, narrowing her pale eyes on Julie and frowning. “Now, would somebody who wasn’t daydreaming away her education care to answer the question?”  
  
Julie sank shamefully down in her seat while another student smugly recited a response lifted straight out of their textbook. To her left, two other classmates tittered and exchanged hushed whispers that the teacher wouldn’t hear. Apparently, Julie wasn’t meant to hear either because they were whispering about her.  
  
“I bet she was thinking about that gorgeous Pet waiting for her at home. But hey, if mine had a head of hair like that, I might entertain some depraved fantasies, too.”  
  
“So you think Julie is into that? Really? She’s just so... normal. She doesn’t really seem interesting enough to be into kinky stuff like that. I mean, she didn’t even know what Pet peep shows were until last year.”  
  
“True. True. But even someone as normal as Julie Sawai must find that candy red hair enticing. Besides, they’re just harmless fantasies. She’s definitely not the type who would actually act on them. Like you said, she is about as ordinary as humans come and ordinary humans don’t do nasty stuff with Pets.”  
  
“Yeah. It’s the weird ones, like Meg Tsuyumine. You just _know_ she’s a fornicator. Mmm, but I totally wouldn’t blame Julie for spacing out thinking about that Akaba. I’ve spaced out thinking about him and I’ve only ever seen him once.”  
  
“Oh, shhhh. Better shut up. She might hear.”  
  
Julie wasn’t really interested in whether the ‘she’ in question was herself or the teacher, as long as it put an end to their idiotic gossip. Not that she minded being called ordinary—Julie knew darn well how ordinary she was, particularly when compared to her superlative friends. But she simply could not abide their insinuation about Meg, even if it was true.  
  
Their insinuation about Julie, on the other hand, was only half true: right transgression, wrong Pet.  
  
She understood why her peers would presume Akaba was the subject of her dirty thoughts. He was a devastatingly attractive Pet, particularly his shock of bright red of hair. The shade was so rare she’d only ever seen it on a handful of humans, and never on another of his kind. Yes, everyone who’d ever seen her two Pets agreed that Akaba was beautiful. He was also serene and graceful and made gorgeous music on the six-string. And Julie adored him.  
  
But she would never feel as close to him as she was to Kotaro.  
  
She wondered, idly, what her classmates would say if they knew it was her other Pet that she’d been thinking about. They might rescind their opinion of her being normal and refile her next to Meg as one of the weird ones. It wasn’t that Kotaro wasn’t a handsome Pet; he was actually quite stunning, long limbed and stormy eyed. But the idea that anyone could possibly favor him, with his common black hair and loud mouth, over Akaba would never make sense to outsiders.  
  
That was okay by Julie. It actually made her feel strangely happy to be the only one who really knew how special Kotaro was.  
  
For the remainder of class, she redoubled her efforts to keep her thoughts fully clothed by immersing herself in, well, clothes. She opened a fresh page in her drawing program and put stylus to tablet, hoping inspiration would kick in. Ordinarily, her brain overflowed with ideas for hats and shoes and everything in between and those ideas spilled out effortlessly onto her tablet. But today it just wasn’t happening. Still, she kept trying.  
  
Fashion had been her favorite hobby for the past several years. Like everything else about Julie—besides the sky blue hair—being obsessed with clothes was not unique. It was considered a perfectly normal interest for a teenager, a phase that reflected the frivolity of youth and would be cast aside when she entered the adult world. Julie knew she would have to enjoy it while she still could.  
  
It really was a shame that fashion design was not considered a lucrative or respectable career path. Students and Providers wore uniforms assigned by their schools and employers respectively. Casual wear was utilitarian and comfortable, typically, and a far cry from the sorts of fanciful things Julie wanted to create. She could always aim to design clothes for Pets, but that would invariably lead her to being associated with those awful, sleazy Pet shows, which was something she’d rather avoid.  
  
While she wasn’t able to keep the sexual thoughts completely at bay, she at least managed to avoid getting called on by the teacher again for the rest of the day, probably because all of her toiling at her tablet looked like diligent note taking. When class ended, the relief she felt to be going home was mixed with a new worry: would she be able to keep her cool when she faced Kotaro?  
  
Unfortunately, she took a different shuttle from all her friends so she couldn’t even distract herself with the art of conversation. Her stomach rumbled as she sat down in a window seat—she really wished she’d eaten her lunch. But this was good! She would think about food instead of fornication.  
  
Chocolate pudding was her favorite after school snack. Delicious stuff! That’s why Kotaro always had some waiting in the kitchen for her when she got home. She would walk in to find him leaning on the counter, tight black pants sheathing those long legs, clinging to his...  
  
 _Ah Crap! Are you kidding me, brain?_  
  
Why couldn’t she just put all this behind her? It was just a stupid, _stupid_ little talk between friends and she was letting it mess with her head. She didn’t need this. Not now. Not ever.  
  
Outside the shuttle window, clean white buildings zoomed by, homes and businesses blending together into a bleached blur. Conformity was encouraged in so many ways in White City and Julie was poised to fit right in. Neither an underachiever nor an overachiever, her grades had always been good, but they weren’t as good as Mamori’s or Koharu’s or even Meg’s. She also lacked their atypical ambition. At sixteen, Mamori already had the makings of an incredible politician, or maybe a revolutionary if she could make it happen. Koharu would be the best veterinarian in the entire city. And Meg, well, whatever she decided to do, she would do it her own way and nobody would stop her.  
  
But Julie’s only passions were clothes and music and her Pets, all childish things she would have to give up before taking up one of the midlevel administrative jobs that were so abundant in White City. Or maybe she would become a Nurturer since she’d always envisioned having a family. As of now, though, she couldn’t think of anyone she wanted to marry and only married couples were allowed to raise a child. So she tried not to think about her future, the bland fate of the ordinary Julie Sawai.  
  
The fate of her Pets was an even worse thought. Children of White City didn’t keep their Pets into adulthood. That would be aberrant. True, some adults did have Pets of their own, like Suzuna’s parents, but never the Pets they grew up with. Always new, young Pets. In fact, you never saw any Pets in White City that appeared to be over twenty and that frightened Julie more than anything else.  
  
Like her fashion design hobby, Julie would have to enjoy Kotaro and Akaba while she still could, before they were released back into the Outside to live out the rest their days with their own kind. And now she only had a few years left, which made the recent conflicts between them particularly aggravating.  
  
On the short walk from the shuttle station to her house, she steeled herself for what was waiting inside her home. Just be cool, she told herself. _Act natural. Forget everything that Meg told you._  
  
“Julieeeee! Welcome home!” Kotaro beamed at her as she walked in the door. Even when he was grinning ear-to-ear, his eyebrows angled down in a sharp v between his eyes, lending his expression a rascally quality. It suited him almost too well, like a tipoff to anyone who encountered him that he was trouble.  
  
“Hey, Kota,” Julie said, as casually as she could manage in the presence of those gleaming gray eyes. Behind his loud voice there was a notable absence of sound. “Is Akaba okay? Usually he’s practicing on the six-string when I get home.”  
  
Kotaro scowled. “How come the first thing you ask about is that guy? I’m the one who was right here waiting for you.”  
  
“You’re doing it again,” she said with an eye-roll. “Acting petulant for no good reason.”  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” he sighed. Then he reached out and took her schoolbag from her. “So how was your day?”  
  
“It was okay I guess.” _Except for the indecent imaginings about your naked body._  
  
“Draw anything good?”  
  
“Not today, I’m afraid. Just wasn’t feeling it.” _Because all I could think about was feeling you._  
  
“Too bad,” he said, brilliant smile back in place. “You always draw the smartest clothing, Julie. You should sell them in stores, seriously.”  
  
Warmth welled in her cheeks. How could he say such silly things and instantly make her day better? “Oh, you’re flattering me,” she said. “Drawing clothes is just my hobby. And a dumb one at that. Nothing worth trying to make a living from. So what did you do today, Kotaro?”  
  
“Me? Just the usual. Worked out on the jogging machine, did some light reading, watched a daytime drama on the VS.”  
  
“You left out the part where you submerged my six-string in the pool,” said Akaba, who had sidled up so quietly that Julie hadn’t even noticed him until now. The musical instrument that he clutched by the neck was still dripping water into a swelling puddle on the tile floor; apparently the dunking was a recent event.  
  
Amazing how quickly the effects of Kotaro’s sweetness could be undone, taking with them any carnal thoughts still lingering in Julie’s brain. She felt a vein throb in her temple and wrung her hands at her sides. “Oh for the love of...! Why, Kotaro? What was your motivation?”  
  
He gaped for a moment, affronted, before answering. “My motivation? The jerk wrote you a song, Julie! A song! And he was going to play it for you!”  
  
Julie was dumbfounded; this behavior was ridiculous even for Kotaro. “So you dunked his six-string? That doesn’t even make sense! Why would you do that over a song?”  
  
“I was just looking out for you,” he insisted. “Akaba is trying to seduce you and I was trying to protect you from his advances.”  
  
“He’s not trying to seduce me,” she groaned as she dragged her fingers down her face. “He’s just trying to be nice and you go and antagonize him.” She immediately turned her attention to Akaba—literally turning so that Kotaro was blocked out of her field of vision completely—because she knew it would bother Kotaro more than anything else she could do and right now he deserved it. “So is it ruined?” she asked Akaba in a sweet voice.  
  
“Fuu,” he sighed. “Pretty much.”  
  
Despite the senseless destruction of his most cherished possession, he remained as calm as a windless day. His eyes were hidden behind the dark sunglasses he always wore for indiscernible reasons, so it was possible some anger flickered there. But Julie doubted it. In the year she’d known him, Akaba had never once displayed any signs of rage, even though Kotaro gave him plenty of reasons.  
  
“This weekend we’ll go and buy you a new one,” Julie said. “I promise.”  
  
Akaba smiled serenely. “I would like that very much. Thank you, Julie. For now, is it all right if I play the piano?”  
  
“Of course,” she said. “And for the record, you don’t have to ask permission. You’re a member of this family now, Akaba. What’s ours is yours.”  
  
A low-pitched rumble emanated from where Kotaro stood, but she continued to ignore him.  
  
“I’ll be in my room studying, if you need me,” she said, only to Akaba, and brusquely added, “Alone,” when Kotaro made a tiny, hopeful noise.  
  
As she stalked off to her room, she made sure not to let him into her sight, even the periphery; seeing the wounded look in his eyes was the greatest threat to her resolve and she wanted to stand firm on this. For Kotaro, being ignored was the worst sort of punishment and although she felt cruel for inflicting it upon him, nothing else she’d ever tried had gotten through to him and she was reaching her wits’ end.  
  
“Julie, please?” Kotaro whined from the hallway as she slipped into her bedroom and shut the door behind her.  
  
 _Be firm, Julie. Don’t look back._  
  
Closed within the sanctuary of her room, the first thing she did was draw in a deep, quivering breath to calm her nerves. Then she walked over to her unmade bed and flopped face-first onto it. Nope, no good. Her nose landed right in Kotaro’s pillow and her next inhale was laced with the spicy scent of his hair. Ugh! How was it possible to find a Pet simultaneously so appealing and appalling?  
  
She rolled onto her back and sighed as her eyes settled on the wall behind her headboard. The entire surface had been converted into a digital screen—it was a present for her 11th birthday—and she’d set it up to display an ever changing collage of photos of her and her friends and her Pets. Some of them were old, from back when she and Kotaro were so small they still had all their milk teeth, before Akaba had entered their lives.  
  
The oldest photo she had of Kotaro was included in the rotation and showed the two of them on a park bench together, arms slung around each other’s tiny shoulders, popsicles dripping orange and purple stripes down the fronts of their shirts. That one was taken just a month after she’d gotten him and they were already thick as thieves. There were no photos from the first time she met Kotaro, but that was okay because it was preserved in her memory like a pressed flower, a precious treasure that was hers alone.  
  
Julie sat up and swept her eyes around the bedroom. As usual, her room was an utter mess. The desk where she claimed to do schoolwork was cluttered with scraps of fabric and half-finished accessories that she’d changed her mind about and abandoned but still intended to try and salvage at some later time. Her so-called work table, where her sewing machine lived, was even worse, laden with several large bolts of cloth as well as a panoply of pieces, parts, and patterns for her latest projects.  
  
But she had no desire to work on any of them today. Instead she went to her closet, densely packed with handmade clothes she wouldn’t dare wear in public, and dug out a small box that was tucked into the bottom left corner. She hadn’t taken it out in a couple of years, but thinking about the first time she met Kotaro pulled her to the box like a magnet. Once she was settled back on her bed, legs folded in front of her, she took from the box a tattered white t-shirt. Or at least it had probably started out white; it had since been stained with dirt and blood and who knows what else. This was the shirt Kotaro was wearing when Prova brought him home.  
  
Julie was just four years old when her Nurta died. This part of the story was always hazy, even while it was happening. It was a shuttle accident; Nurta fell on the tracks and for reasons that the authorities never figured out, the safety mechanism that automatically stops a shuttle if something is in its path malfunctioned. Julie wasn’t with her when it happened and only found out when Prova was the one who picked her up from preschool.  
  
She remembered being sad and she remembered crying and she remembered feeling like she would never be happy again. The pain was as much physical as it was emotional, a penetrating ache in the center of her chest that wouldn’t go away. All she wanted was to have her Nurta back and be wrapped up in those arms again. Of course she loved her Prova, and since her Prova was sad, too, she at least was not alone in her misery. But bit-by-bit Prova got back to her old self and before long she went back to work and acted like everything was okay. For Julie it wasn’t so easy. And while the nanny that was hired to look after her tried her best, she didn’t know what to do with this desolate, inconsolable child.  
  
When her birthday came that year, Julie didn’t want a party. Things like parties and games and cake and presents didn’t even interest her anymore.  
  
She asked for nothing and instead she got Kotaro.  
  
He was a scrawny little creature, and filthy to boot. All matted hair and spindly legs. The dingy shirt that was so small in her hands now came down to his scraped, knobby knees back then. His feet were bare and caked with mud. It wouldn’t be until years later, when she learned where Pets come from, that Julie would realize that her Prova had brought him straight from the wrangler who’d caught him to their home, without a bath or a change of clothes in between.  
  
From that moment when she first saw him, half hiding behind Prova’s legs in the entrance to their home, Julie was inexorably drawn to him. She’d never seen a Pet up close before, let alone one her own size. For the first time in months, her sadness receded, replaced by utter fascination. With teeny steps she approached him.  
  
“Hello?” she said, making him duck further behind Prova. “Don’t be scared,” she continued. “I promise I’ll be nice to you. I’m Julie. Do you have a name?”  
  
“He’s very shy,” Prova said. “Hasn’t said one word since I picked him up. But I am sure he just needs some time to adjust. He’s yours now, Julie. If you want him. So you should give him a new name.”  
  
“Mine?” It was such an important sounding word. This creature was hers. He needed her. And if she wanted, he could be with her forever—or so she assumed at the time—she just had to give him a name and make it official.  
  
Cautiously, he peeked around Prova’s legs at Julie, though she wasn’t sure how he could possibly see her since his shaggy hair fell over his eyes like a dense black curtain. “Julie?” he said in a fittingly small voice. With a grubby hand, he pushed his hair off of his face and blinked at her with eyes the color of storm clouds.  
  
“That’s right!” She beamed and pointed at herself. “I’m Julie.” Then she pointed at him. “And your name will be... Kotaro!” The name was from a story that her Nurta used to read to her, set long ago, about a child and her faithful pet, Kotaro, who was a strange, extinct animal that was covered in hair and walked on four legs.  
  
Julie’s Kotaro was very pleased with his new name and grinned back at her as he tested it out loud, pointing at himself. “Kotaro!”  
  
Julie clapped her hands together in delight. “Smart! Come on, Kotaro. I’m gonna give you a bath!” And then she grabbed him by the hand and led him to the bathroom to get clean.  
  
“Smart!” he parroted.  
  
That night she held onto him as she slept, but he didn’t seem to mind. Back then she was the one who latched onto him, at first because she just needed someone to hold and eventually just because he was Kotaro.  
  
And now everything was all messed up and confusing.  
  
Sighing, she folded up the old threadbare t-shirt and tucked it back into its box. Dwelling on the past was a pointless endeavor; all it would do is make her feel sad about those days when all they had to worry about was playing, and their future together stretched out endlessly before them. Thinking about her Nurta again made her wonder which was worse, to lose somebody you love unexpectedly, or to know they are going to be cut out of your life years in advance and not be able to do anything about it.  
  
Now that she’d finished her moping, she figured she better go find Kotaro and try to set things right. Or at least tentatively right. As she approached the door to exit, however, she became aware of the lugubrious piano melody permeating from outside and paused to consider Kotaro’s latest transgression. Nostalgia was a powerful thing, very effective for inducing forgiveness. But he really had been a colossal jerk and it had only been less than twenty minutes since his shunning began, not really long enough to get the point across that it was a punishment.  
  
So she decided he could wait it out a little longer while she took a shower. Yes, a full half-hour of being ignored. That outta teach ‘im!  
  
...  
  
The shower was a good idea. Now clean, Julie put on her usual sleeping attire: a pair of soft shorts and one of Kotaro’s oversized shirts. It was only early afternoon, still hours until bedtime, but she’d already had enough psychological distress today that she felt she’d earned early pajama privileges. She could hear from her bedroom that Akaba was still playing the piano, so at least he was coping reasonably well without his preferred instrument.  
  
Alright, time to lecture Kotaro. First, she had to track him down. Hopefully he wasn’t feeling so dejected that he’d gone off to sulk in some strange corner of the house. She prepared herself for a search, but when she opened her bedroom door, he was right there in the hallway, sitting with his back against the wall and his head between his knees.  
  
He looked up when he heard the door open. “Hey,” he said in a humble voice.  
  
“Have you been waiting out here the whole time?”  
  
“Almost. I went to apologize to Akaba first.”  
  
That was a pleasant surprise. Maybe he was finally starting to show some maturity. “Really? That’s great! Did he accept?”  
  
“Well, I mean, I _went_ to apologize to him,” Kotaro said, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. His expression turned to a frown as he continued. “But when I saw his stupid face with those stupid sunglasses as he plinked away on that stupid piano I couldn’t get the words out.”  
  
Alas, she should’ve known any sign of emotional growth in Kotaro was too good to be true. “Come in, Kotaro,” she sighed. “We need to talk.”  
  
Like a child anticipating a scolding, he followed her inside with cautious steps. “I’m still going to apologize to him,” he said. “Really, I am. I just needed to make sure things were okay between you and me first. Because you mean a whole heap more to me than candy-hair shades-face out there.”  
  
Julie closed the door behind them and pointed at the bed. “Sit.” He complied and she sat down next to him, her eyes aimed down at her lap so she wouldn’t get distracted by his intense gray eyes. “Why did you do it?”  
  
“I told you, I thought his intentions on you were dubious so I did what I could to protect you!”  
  
She raised an eyebrow. The lie was incredibly stupid, but she had to give him points for feigned conviction. Now to get the truth; all she had to do was say his name in a slow, disapproving tone. “Kotaro...”  
  
It was all the coercion he needed. “Alright, fine. I didn’t really think he was trying to seduce you,” he confessed. “I know that Akaba’s actually a decent guy.”  
  
Huh? That didn’t sound like something Kotaro would say. Julie waited for him to discredit it with some rude addendum, but he didn’t. “Wait, you really mean that?”  
  
“Yeah I do.”  
  
“Then why do you constantly harass him?”  
  
Kotaro gave a little snort of disdain. “Look, just ‘cause I acknowledge that Akaba is respectable and talented doesn’t mean I like him. If anything, he’s too good. It’s super annoying. And playing a song he wrote for you may not be an act of seduction, but it makes me look bad by comparison. He’s already got the fancy hair and the musical ability, he doesn’t need another reason for you to like him more than me.”  
  
So that was it: jealousy. She’d suspected as much for some time, but she hadn’t guessed that her affections figured so strongly into the equation. “Kotaro, do you really think I like Akaba more than you?”  
  
He crossed his arms over his chest and huffed. “No.” Then, after a moment of silent pouting, added in a softer tone, “Maybe.”  
  
What a ridiculous fool. Could all of his lashing out at Akaba really just be a manifestation of simple insecurity? If that were the case, reassuring him should be the cure. It sounded way too easy but, still, it was worth a try. She placed a hand on his knee. “I don’t like Akaba more than you, Kotaro. I couldn’t possibly, what with everything you and I have been through together. You mean more to me than anyone else in the entire world, human’s included.”  
  
“Then why wasn’t I enough?” His voice strained and the muscles in his leg tensed beneath her hand.  
  
“Kotaro...” Even the smallest trace of anguish in his voice was enough to shake her composure and make the words catch in her throat. “You know that I didn’t actively seek out another Pet. Akaba just sort of fell into my lap.” A grunt from Kotaro warned her that her choice of phrase was a little too suggestive for his tastes so she sighed and quickly moved on. “He didn’t have anywhere else to stay after his old master died. Prova just brought him to stay here while she settled his master’s estate. I couldn’t turn him away.”  
  
“I know that, but you didn’t have to make it permanent. He’s a nice-looking Pet, he’d have found a new owner in no time.”  
  
“Or get bought up by one of those horrible Pet shows,” Julie reminded.  
  
That time when Akaba’s future was being determined was right around when she first learned about the seedy Pet shows, where humans pay to watch Pets engage in lewd activities with each other. The prettier the Pet, the more money he could pull in, so she knew those show producers would love to get their hands on Akaba. There was no way she could let them have him.  
  
But she also had another reason for keeping him. “I thought that you and he could be friends, Kotaro.”  
  
“My friend?” He sounded offended by the very notion.  
  
“Well, you were always complaining to me back then about how lonely you were when I was at school. I figured since Akaba is so mild-mannered and easy to get along with he’d make a good companion for you.”  
  
Kotaro grunted. “When I said I was lonely, I meant that I missed you, Julie. Not that I wanted some jerk hanging around.”  
  
Julie felt a squeeze in her chest. “I know you miss me when I’m not here. I miss you, too. But... it’s good for you to have a friend who is... like you. Just like I have my human friends. Because...” Damn. How could she talk to him about how they wouldn’t be in each other’s lives for very much longer when she couldn’t even bear to think about it? Slowly. The only way to say it without starting to cry was slowly. “Because someday... I will have to move out. And have a job. Or get married. And we will both have to... carry on with our individual lives...”  
  
Kotaro sprang up from the bed with such force that the mattress bounced in recoil. “You don’t think I know that?” His voice was sharpened with distress. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about how I’m going to lose you, Julie! And call me selfish if you want, but it burns me up having to spend our last few years together sharing you with another Pet! Yeah, I’m the jerk, I admit it! I want you all to myself!”  
  
Swept up in his fervor, Julie leapt to her feet and responded with more vehemence than was necessary. “Akaba is a part of this family and he’s staying, so you’ll just have to make the best of it!”  
  
“Family?” he barked back. “How can you call us family when we’ll only be together for a few more years?”  
  
“It’s not like I want it to be that way, Kotaro! It’s just the way things are! I don’t even know exactly what happens to Pets when their masters grow up! Nobody tells young people anything in this stupid city! All I know is that I don’t get to keep you and I don’t know how to stop it and it tears my heart into bits just thinking about it! And you keep ruining what little time we have left by being such a petty, jealous... DIPSHIT!”  
  
The words had burst out of her mouth so loud and fast and sloppy that when she was finished, she wasn’t even entirely sure of what she’d said, though she was sure that she had meant it. And now the only sounds were the long hisses of heavy breaths passing in and out of her nose and behind them the muted, plaintive melody of the piano.  
  
Her shoulders trembled in the wake of her outburst.  
  
Since arriving home, she’d forbidden her eyes to linger on Kotaro’s face or body for anything longer than a cursory glance, but now she finally let herself look at him. Really look at him. Because right now she needed to.  
  
That dirty, gangly creature had grown so much in eleven years. Funny how she never really though about it because she was growing up right beside him. The eyes hadn’t changed, though. He was looking back at her, mouth ajar in a bemused expression. He blinked dumbly several times before closing his mouth, moistening his lips with his tongue, and opening it again. “Have I really been a dipshit?”  
  
That hopelessly adorable idiocy, that was _her_ Kotaro.  
  
And just like that, all of those thoughts she’d only managed to keep at bay because she was so furious with him—the hot, bare, skin-to-skin thoughts that had plagued her brain all afternoon at school—flooded back over her like an enormous wave. But she didn’t just want to touch him in the ways that Meg had described. What Julie craved felt somehow even more depraved: a kiss, and not on the cheek. This wasn’t about trying to curb his bad behavior, it was about desire. Her desire. For a Pet. For a creature that wasn’t even human.  
  
Without saying a word, she closed the gap between them, snared the front of his shirt with sweaty fingers and pulled him down so his mouth met hers. This kind of kiss belonged to human lovers and here she was, stealing it without remorse. Kotaro’s lips were soft and faintly sweet and kissing them sent a rush of delicious warmth down to her belly and out to her limbs.  
  
Did it feel so good _despite_ being wrong or _because_ it was wrong?  
  
Even though she’d caught Kotaro off guard, it took less than a second for him to meld into the kiss. His hands found her hips and smoothed up the sides of her body, making it all the way to her shoulder blades before he pulled back with a gasp.  
  
“Julie, what are you doing?” He panted the words, chest heaving visibly. His eyes were wide and glazed with hunger.  
  
“Lay down on the bed,” she husked. This was it. She was doing it.  
  
He obeyed without question, just like a good Pet should, and Julie positioned herself so she was straddling his thighs. Her heart drummed out a warning that echoed in her bones: Illegal. Illicit. Dangerous. But she refused to listen.  
  
“Julie...” When Kotaro whispered her name, she swooped down and crushed her lips against his again, devouring any other words he might have had planned. His hands returned to her back, this time slipping beneath the shirt she wore—his shirt—to touch her naked flesh.  
  
Every nerve his fingers grazed lit up as if an electrical current were being run through it and her spine arched. Still she didn’t break the kiss; the place where their mouths connected had become the center of the universe. She felt her teeth click against his, felt his tongue slide over hers. This was an intricate dance. There was a desperation to it, an insatiable need for more.  
  
Closer. Deeper. Kissing wouldn’t be enough.  
  
She left one hand braced against his chest while the other traveled down his stomach to the front of his trousers. Even through the thick black denim she could feel that he was already hard and it sent a shudder of nervous excitement up her back. Her fingers were clumsy, though, fumbling as they tried to work open the button and zipper. Dammit. She’d have to give this a bit more of her attention. Reluctantly, she separated her mouth from Kotaro’s, and turned her focus to his pants. With two hands she was able to open them easily and as soon she did, that part of him, still covered by his underwear, pushed free.  
  
The word ‘cock’ suddenly surfaced from a deep recess of her memory. It was one of many Feral terms for the part of his anatomy she was dealing with and of course she had learned it from Meg.  
  
She watched Kotaro’s face as she touched him experimentally through the thin fabric of his underwear. Just a light touch to start, but it made him close his eyes and let out a tiny, throaty moan.  
  
Amazing! Such sensitivity!  
  
So Meg had been right. Might as well put her advice to good use, even if it wasn’t the main objective of this mission. Julie slid her hand under the waistband of Kotaro’s underwear and curled her fingers around his cock. And as she stroked him, she gave her orders.  
  
“You can’t fight with Akaba anymore, Kotaro. You have to be a good Pet and play nicely. Do you understand?”  
  
“Nnn... Yes.” His response was something between a pant and a whine, barely coherent. He was writhing beneath her, hips lifting from the bed to thrust into her fist.  
  
Was that a ‘yes’ of agreement to what she’d said or just a reaction to what she was doing to him? Did it matter?  
  
The motion of her hand synched up with the sound of the piano, moving rhythmically up and down the shaft of his cock. She could feel a sharp ridge of vein just below the surface of his velvety soft skin, pulsing against her palm. This had to be building up to something.  
  
“Julie... st... stop. Stop!”  
  
She stilled her hand and stared down at his face, terrified of what he was about to say. She’d initiated this without considering that he might not want it and now he was asking her to stop. As his master, she was not obligated to obey him, but if he was uncomfortable, there was no way she could continue. But now everything was going to be awkward. She’d messed up big time. Ruined everything. Her heart pounded in her throat, threatening to choke her. Unable to look at him when he rejected her, she squeezed her eyes shut.  
  
And suddenly his hand was cradling her cheek. “Don’t close your eyes, Julie. I want to see them.” She opened her eyes and found a soft, exultant smile right in front of them. “Before we continue, please tell me this isn’t a dream,” he breathed. “I’ve dreamed about this so many times, I can’t tell if it’s real or not. Please, tell me this is real.”  
  
He’d dreamed about this. He wanted this. He wanted her. “Yes, Kotaro, this is real,” she whispered. Then she leaned down and kissed him again, sweetly.  
  
His hands hooked around her waist and pulled her body flush with his as he deepened the kiss from sweet to passionate. When he pulled back for air he panted in her ear, “Let me touch you, Julie.”  
  
“You are touching me, silly,” she breathed back.  
  
“No, I mean... Let me touch you the way you were touching me. I want to make love to you the way humans do.”  
  
Her pulse thrummed between her legs in strange anticipation. “How do you know how humans make love?”  
  
“Romance novels. Or what did you think I’ve been reading while you’ve been at school?” He chuckled nervously and continued before she could say anything. “I want to make you feel good. Before you finish me off, please let me try?”  
  
What did he mean by finish him off? How did you even know when you were finished? She’d have to trust him to know. “Okay, Kotaro,” she said.  
  
The moment she said it, he tightened his hold on her and executed a brilliant barrel-roll while laughing. Now she was pinioned beneath him and suddenly aware of how much bigger and stronger he was than her. It didn’t matter that she was a human and he was her Pet; if he wanted to, he could hurt her right now and she would be powerless to stop him. Kotaro would never hurt her, of course, but realizing the staggering difference in physical strength between Pets and humans was alarming.  
  
And exhilarating. Being touched so gently by a creature so strong was arousing in a way she couldn’t begin to explain. Strong and beautiful. Damn was he beautiful. Those gray eyes were dark as thunderheads with all the force of an impending squall behind them.  
  
“You are so damn beautiful,” he said, right as she was thinking the same thing about him. He kissed her lips again and then moved to her neck, nuzzling under her jaw and leaving a trail of little nips down to her collarbones. His hands threaded under her shirt, skimmed up her stomach to cup her breasts.  
  
She hadn’t put on a bra after her shower and drew in a sharp little gasp when his thumbs brushed over her bare nipples. Pleased with the reaction, he proceeded to roll the sensitive peaks between his thumbs and forefingers until they tightened into hard beads.  
  
“Kotaro...” she whimpered as she wriggled beneath him.  
  
The shirt went up, pushed all the way to her armpits so her breast were exposed to the cool air. He took the left nipple into his hot, hot mouth and laved it with his tongue while his fingers continued teasing the right. Then he switched.  
  
Julie could feel her brain going fuzzy. Any delusions she had of being in control of this situation were rapidly slipping away.  
  
The shorts came down, and along with them the panties, dragged down her legs and off her body in one long pull of Kotaro’s hands. Her bent knees quivered and he calmed them with kisses. First one, then the other. Then his mouth began a northward journey, dripping a chain of kisses up the inside of her thigh. Higher and higher he went, until...  
  
“Hnnn!”  
  
His lips swept through her curls and pressed against her cleft and her breath hitched. The kiss deepened. His mouth opened and his tongue slid over her, probed inside. So hot. His mouth was so damn hot. A ragged moan tore from her throat and her hands fisted in his ruff of black hair, holding his head in place. From the sounds she made he quickly learned where to focus his tongue’s activity.  
  
Who knew her Kotaro was so talented? Had he really picked this up from human romance novels?  
  
Julie had never felt this kind of pleasure before. It filled her like warmed sweet-syrup, oozed out to every corner of her body and gathered in her belly. Something was coming, something big. She could feel it building in her core. This was an ascent up a steep mountain of euphoria and while she sensed that she was nearing the peak, Kotaro’s diligent ministrations just kept pushing her higher and higher.  
  
Two of his fingers spread the folds surrounding her cleft and pushed inside of her. She grunted as her hips bucked, forcing his fingers deeper. Not deep enough. She wanted something else inside of her, something bigger, before she reached the apex of that mountain.  
  
“Kotaro...” she panted, but he was so engrossed in his task that he didn’t respond. So she said it again, louder. “Kotaro.”  
  
He lifted his head and looked at her as if he’d been scolded for doing something wrong. “Yes?”  
  
“Up,” she commanded, beckoning him with a crooked finger. When she kissed his mouth she could taste herself on his lips. “You did good, Kotaro. You did very good. Now I want you to make love to me the way only a Pet can. Roll over.”  
  
Naturally, he obeyed.  
  
They’d come full circle and returned to their original positions, though she was now half naked. With a quick maneuver she removed her shirt and tossed it away then she set herself to getting him caught up. Too impatient to deal with the line of buttons up the front of his shirt, she yanked it up and off over his head and threw into the growing pile of discarded clothes on the floor. His skin was gorgeous, pale and smooth but for that little divot in the center of his stomach that all Pets had and all humans lacked.  
  
Now the pants. They were already unbuttoned and unzipped so all she had to do was tug them down to his ankles with his underwear and he kicked them the rest of the way off.  
  
They were both completely naked now, Pet and master, about to commit the most forbidden act of all. Strange how the differences between their two species had never felt so insignificant as they did now.  
  
She gave Kotaro’s cock a few quick strokes to get it fully hard again then guided it into her as she lowered her body onto his. It was much bigger than his fingers but it fit inside her like a hand inside a glove, hot and tight and perfect. Before she was fully seated, he thrust up into her, pushing through what little resistance her body offered and completing their joining.  
  
“Fuck,” he growled, throwing his head back against the pillow. It was the first time she’d ever heard him use that Feral word. “Fucking smart, Julie.”  
  
“Fucking smart,” she agreed as she moved on top of him.  
  
She rode his hips as they rocked and rose, her breasts bouncing. She’d backslid on her trek up the mountain of ecstasy, but now its peak drew close again. Her hands spread flat on his hard chest and his hands squeezed her soft bottom. The act they were committing was unnatural, deviant, yet it felt so inexplicably instinctual, as if they were both channeling the spirit of some distant shared ancestor from before their evolutionary paths diverged.  
  
Delirious words fell from his mouth along with her name, over and over. “Julie. You’re amazing. Julie. Wanted this so long. Julie. Julie. I love you.”  
  
It was too much. She was as high as she could get, top of the mountain. And for some reason hearing those three words were what pushed her over in a cascade of pure bliss. “K-Kotaro!” she stammered, crumpling against him as pleasure racked her body.  
  
It took just three more powerful thrusts for him to hit his own climax and he buried his face in the juncture of her neck and shoulder as he did. “I love you, Julie. I love you. I love you. I love you.”  
  
For several minutes they remained entangled, bodies still joined, hearts still racing. Or maybe it was only seconds; Julie’s sense of time had become loopy. When she finally did roll off of Kotoro, she nestled into the crook of his arm, laying her head on his chest.  
  
The cleft between her legs was sore and raw but it felt good somehow. There was wetness on her thighs and when she looked down she saw white liquid, ribboned with blood, dribbling out of her body and onto the bed sheet. But she was feeling too sedated to react. Right now she just wanted to rest against Kotaro and listen to his heartbeat as it gradually slowed to normal.  
  
He sighed blissfully, his hand tracing a lazy, abstract swirl on her hip. “I meant it, you know. I love you, Julie.”  
  
Those three words had made her so happy when she heard them before, but now they made her chest and her throat feel tight. Because now she was in a state of mind to realize that they didn’t matter. Even if she felt the same way he did. Even if she said the words to him and meant them. It didn’t matter because he was a Pet and she was a human. Admitting love would only make the situation harder to deal with, but she said it anyways. “I love you, too, Kotaro.”  
  
Then she kissed him one more time.  
  
It was still an hour until Prova would get home. Akaba was still playing the piano. She could stay in the dream a little longer.  
  
Her eyes fluttered shut. And immediately shot back open when a soothing, artificial voice chimed in her ear. It was an alert auto-programed into her nightstand.  
  
“A reminder for Julie Sawai: Your monthly blood check is due before midnight today.”  
  
The dream was over sooner than expected.  
  
“Crap!” she swore as she scrambled out of bed. “Shit! Fuck!” They were the ugliest Feral words she knew.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Kotaro asked with a confused look on his face.  
  
Julie responded with a squawk. “What’s wrong? We just committed a crime is what’s wrong! What we just did... You could be killed because of what I just did to you!” In a frenzy she gathered her clothes up off the floor and started tugging them back on.  
  
“But it’s not like anybody knows about it,” he said, sounding entirely too relaxed. “How would they even find out?”  
  
“If my blood check shows that I’ve contracted the Sickness they’ll know immediately! Fornication is the only method of transmission.”  
  
“Oh right, the finger prick thingie you have to do every month,” he mused.  
  
But she didn’t have time to get into a discussion about it right now. “Speaking of blood, you have to get up and help me strip the bed. I need to wash these sheets before Prova gets home. And put on some clothes!”  
  
She was panicking, berating herself in her head as she barked orders at Kotaro. _Stupid Julie! Idiot Julie! How could you get so carried away? How could you do this to him? If anybody finds out... No! Don’t even think about that!_  
  
Kotaro did as she said, all the while looking at her like she was a raving lunatic. His pensive expression told her that he wanted to say something but was holding it back.  
  
“Here,” she told him, shoving the balled up bedsheets into his arms. “Will you put those in the washer?” Then she plopped down on the stripped bed to take care of her blood check.  
  
Like the sleep alarm, the blood check station was build into her nightstand. Every citizen of White City had to use it once a month starting when she first got her monthly bleeding. All it required was for the user to place her finger into a narrow receptacle, which then drew a blood sample with a small needle and tested it for the Sickness. The results went straight to city health officials.  
  
Julie inserted her finger and waited for the familiar pinch of the needle while Kotaro stood silently behind her with the sheets, hesitating to carry out her last request. There was a minute-long wait for the test to complete and she muttered impatiently, as if it would speed up the process. “Come on! Come on!”  
  
Eventually, after what felt like ten minutes—time was still misbehaving—the automated voice announced the results.  
  
“Blood check: normal. Have a nice month, Julie Sawai.”  
  
She didn’t realize how worried she was until the relief washed over her. It was silly of her, really. She’d only committed the heinous crime of fornication one time so the odds of her contracting the Sickness were very slim. And that was only if the Sickness was even real. Maybe the blood check was just part of the elaborate joke. After all, Meg had all but admitted to being a habitual fornicator and she’d never gotten the Sickness.  
  
“See, everything is going to be okay,” Kotaro said optimistically.  
  
“It can’t happen again, Kotaro,” she told him.  
  
“Oh,” there was a note of sadness in his voice. “Do you regret that it just happened now?”  
  
He had that irresistible wounded look. Damn his cuteness!  
  
“No, I don’t regret it,” she said. “I wanted it. And it was special. But I will not let you be punished for it. The only way to keep you safe is for us to pretend it never happened. You can’t talk about it to anyone, even to me. You can’t kiss me. And you can’t say that you love me.  Just... try to forget any of this happened.”  
  
“But I don’t want to forget,” he said softly.  
  
“You have to!” Her voice broke on the last word. Deep down, it wasn’t what she wanted either, but it was what had to be done. “We have to go on acting the way we always did before. So no moping around acting sad, okay? Now go put those sheets in the washer.”  
  
He left without saying another word.  
  
Alone, she lay back on her bed and just listened to Akaba play piano.


End file.
